


Ancient Treasure

by musesmistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:54:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesmistress/pseuds/musesmistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds out something unexpected about Elizabeth and somehow, its all Rodney's fault!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John stood in the middle of the control room and watched Rodney make his way across the gate room and up the stairs towards him.

‘Hey,’ the scientist said and looked around before turning back to John, ‘where’s Elizabeth?’

‘I was just waiting for someone to come to command so I could go find out,’ John replied before patting Rodney on the shoulder and walking away.

He made his way easily through the city, nodding to people as he passed and stopping for a moment to have a quick conversation with Teyla as she moved towards the Gym. He figured Elizabeth had simply slept in and didn’t hurry to wake her, he above all else knew she needed the rest.

He reached her room and activated the chime, he turned to look down the hall and smiled to Radek as he passed before turning back to eye the door with suspicion. He rang the chime again and waited, quickly becoming impatient with his leader.

‘Elizabeth,’ he called but still no reply came, ‘Elizabeth,’ he called again now growing slightly concerned that she wasn’t answering.

He reached out; hesitating for a moment then opened her door to step inside. The bed ahead of him told him she had slept in it; the covers strewn across it as if she’d hurriedly made her way out of its comfort.

‘Elizabeth,’ he tried again, but heard nothing. The room was empty; she could have just got out of bed late, quickly dressed and left. 

He turned ready to leave and spotted her clothes piled neatly on the chair beside him, he had originally had his back to it. John turned back to the main room and moved quickly towards the only other door.

‘Elizabeth,’ he called through it, he had absolutely no desire to step into the bathroom and find her in the shower. He paused, listening closely for any sounds, but heard silence. John closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath before reaching out to open the door.

He stepped in and took in the room, sparsely decorated like the rest of the room, her bath and washing items in place and towels hooked on the wall.

On the floor by the toilet however, was Elizabeth, her limp body lay unconscious and dressed only in a very tight pair of black shorts and a string strapped top that hugged her upper body. Any other time and John was sure he would have been turned on by the outfit.

He moved quickly, reaching her side and taking in her appearance head to toe. He reached up and activated his radio to call Carson when he spotted something that didn’t seem quite right.

‘Carson, I need you in Elizabeth’s room, NOW!’

John kneeled down beside her as the doctor replied and tentatively reached out, his hand brushing lightly across her stomach; the black shorts were tucked underneath it as it rose ever so slightly from her body.

He was imagining it, he was sure of it; perhaps her stomach had always been like that.

John carefully reached down to Elizabeth; he tucked one hand under her head and pulled her close to his body, resting her head on his shoulder before slipping the other under her knees and pulling her from the floor.

He carried her out into the main room and laid her carefully on the bed before returning to the bathroom and wetting a washcloth. John brushed the damp cloth lightly across her face, realising for the first time why she was in the bathroom, the remnants of vomit played slightly on her lips.

The door slid open moments later and Carson hurried inside followed by a nurse. ‘I found her in the bathroom,’ John explained before catching Carson’s eye.

‘I knew she wasn’t feeling well, she wouldn’t let me examine her, just kept telling me she was tired.’

He looked away as Carson began to examine her, only to turn back a second later as he heard a soft groan, John focused in time to see Elizabeth push Carson away and promptly vomit over the side of her bed. His instincts kicked in and John quickly reached out take hold of her hip to stop her from rolling off the side.

Eventually she pushed back and John eased her back down onto the bed, her eyes open and fix on him for a moment before she let them drift shut.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asks Carson.

‘Possibly just the stomach flu,’ the doctor replies, listening to Elizabeth’s chest through his stethoscope. ‘Let’s move her to the infirmary and do some tests.’

John pulled back as Carson continues and made his way across the room to the small cupboard and took out a blanket, he turned back to find the nurse busy cleaning the floor beside Elizabeth’s bed and Carson finishing his short examination.

He moved to the bed stopping at her side as Carson packs away his things, then draped the blanket over her making sure to completely cover her before he lifted her off the bed and once again holding her close to his chest.

As they walked the corridor a soft muttering began, people seeing Elizabeth unconscious in John’s arms seemed to bring about a certain amount of worry. John ignored them, fixing his mind on his need to reach the infirmary.

‘There you are,’ Rodney called as he spotted them passing a turn in the corridor, ‘wh… what’s wrong with Elizabeth?’ he asked catching up and spotting his unconscious leader wrapped in a blanket.

‘That’s why we’re heading for the infirmary, Rodney,’ John snapped as he pushed passed the scientist to carry on walking.

‘Well, is she going to be okay?’ he asked following them.

‘Again with the infirmary, Rodney,’ John shot back over his shoulder. He turned the final corner at the end and left Rodney behind.

~~**~~

John paced the medical bay impatiently as Carson put Elizabeth though several tests. He’d heard a mad rush at some point, with Carson stopping a nurse from giving her a drug he’d ordered seemingly moments before it was done.

The doctor emerged a few moments later looking confused and slightly dazed; he watched the nurses shift the bed and push it away to a private area of the hospital before he turned his attention back to Beckett.

‘I think we should go somewhere private,’ Carson said, his tone of voice making John think it was something serious. He led Carson down the corridor from the infirmary and stepped into the nearest room.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked worried that Carson was going to tell him Elizabeth was dying.

‘Technically, she’s fine, exhaustion is making her ill, but she also hasn’t been eating properly and she’s slightly dehydrated,’ Carson explained, ‘I don’t know if you noticed that her stomach was swollen,’ Carson waited as John nodded, ‘I thought it was just a stomach bug to begin with.’

‘But it’s not?’ John asked seeing the apprehension on the doctor’s face. ‘Carson,’ he spat after a short silence.

‘I’m not entirely sure I should be telling you this,’ the doctor said.

‘She’s the leader of this city, Carson, if she’s ill, I’m next in line and I need to know how long she’s gonna be out for.’

‘Okay,’ Carson said somewhat resigned to the fact. ‘She’s pregnant, Colonel,’ he said.

‘What?’ John stood stunned, ‘How? When?’

‘I won’t know those answers until she’s awake,’ Carson said, ‘but from what I can tell, she’s somewhere between three and a half and four months along.’

~~**~~

John sat beside her bed in the infirmary, watching her for a moment as she forces her eyes to stay open, fighting the exhaustion that was spread thickly though her body.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Elizabeth,’ John asked softly, ‘for that matter, why didn’t you tell Carson?’

‘SGC. IOA,’ she told him, the grogginess evident in the effort to speak. John looked down as her hand began to glide across her stomach. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to him, watching his rapt attention as she spread her hand over the small bump of her belly. John moved his eyes back to her face with a small smile.

‘You still should have told someone, me, Carson, Teyla, even Doctor Heightmeyer,’ he said, ‘you’ve been worrying too much, put too much stress on your body.’

He sighed, his eyes drifting back down to her hand as it slid easily across her belly, he would love for the child to be his, to be able to reach down now and run just one finger across the base of the swell. He was fighting off this urge along with the one that screamed in his head to ask who the father was; he wanted to know who she had taken an interest in that was better than him.

‘Go back to sleep Elizabeth,’ he whispered, ‘we can figure this out in a day or two.’

~~**~~

‘John,’ Teyla said stepping into Elizabeth’s office and looking cautiously at her commander.

‘Hey Teyla,’ he replied not looking away from the computer in front of him, ‘what’s up?’

‘Is Elizabeth well?’

‘She will be,’ John said with a heavy sigh, ‘she’s just exhausted, stressed and not eating properly,’ John explained, not adding the real problem. ‘She’ll be back in a few days, week at most.’

Teyla reached behind her and activated the control to close the door before moving to sit in a chair facing him. John’s eyes raised to her at the action and he quirked an eyebrow in question.

‘There is a rumour circulating the city,’ Teyla begun carefully, ‘they are saying that Elizabeth is pregnant,’ John tried to keep his expression questioning, ‘they are also suggesting that the child belongs to you, several of the woman are convinced that you and she have been having a... secret relationship for some time now.’

‘There are always rumours about me and Elizabeth,’ John said pointedly, ‘you know that.’

Teyla bowed her head slightly, taking this answer to mean it was all a lie, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with Elizabeth and had been for some time.

‘Is none of it true?’ she asked considering that he would not take kindly to the request. ‘I only ask because I have noticed some changes in Elizabeth’s behaviour lately, she had changed what and how she wears her clothes, spends as little time talking as possible and...’

‘She’s pregnant,’ John cut her off, ‘but unless I’ve managed to sleepwalk my way to Elizabeth’s room in the middle of the night... that baby isn’t mine.’

Teyla smiled at the thought of his suggestion of sleepwalking, but the smile vanished as he had said the baby wasn’t his, the bitterness in his voice was only too evident.

‘She hasn’t been awake long enough to say anything more than a few words. Carson’s gonna let me know if she tells him anything.’

As he finished talking he looked up to see Carson moving through the control room towards him, he slowed down at the sight of the door closed and John had to motion for him to come in before the man would cross the bridge.

Teyla caught the action and rose to leave; she was stopped by John as Carson stepped in and raised her eyebrows at him in question.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I tried to contact you via the radio, but there was no answer.’

‘It is okay Carson, I was just leaving,’ Teyla said and made her way from the room before John could stop her.

~~**~~

John looked around the room of senior personnel, each one of them relaxed and pleased, enjoying lively conversation with the person next to them, he stood behind his seat and eyed the empty one to his right, he didn’t see the one person he really wanted to talk to right now.

John had agreed with Carson, that until they figured this out, Elizabeth would remain in the infirmary, the information she had given him yesterday was impossible, and John couldn’t believe he was about to repeat the whole thing over again to everyone in the room.

‘Sheppard,’ Ronon nudged him in the side and John looked hastily around at the expectant faces.

‘I said, are we starting this meeting any time soon, or are you going to continue to stare at Elizabeth’s chair?’ Rodney repeated now that he had the Colonel’s attention.

He sat down slowly, taking his time in order to gather his thoughts, to compose his sentence before he’d have to dive into the shark pit and answer a million and one questions. It was easier, he thought, that one of the people in the room already knew some of what he had to say, but he wasn’t completely sure Teyla would be any help against the questions Rodney and Zelenka could ask.

He swallowed cautiously still biding his time and finding that there was only one way to get it all over with, and that was to dive in from the high board.

‘Elizabeth’s pregnant.’

‘What? When? How? Who?’

‘You need a picture McKay?’ Ronon asked sarcastically.

‘No!’ Rodney exclaimed giving the large man a horrified and disgusted look.

‘She doesn’t know the answer to any of those questions,’ John interjected before Ronon could come up with a retort for Rodney.

‘She doesn’t know who the father is?’ Radek asked raising his eyebrows.

‘No, she can account for all of her time since we arrived here three years ago. She says she hasn’t had that kind of... opportunity at all.’

Silence fell and John was momentarily caught between being thankful for no questions and wishing someone would say something.

‘Could someone have attacked her?’ Teyla asked after a few minutes. ‘There was a story among my people for some time of a woman who was taken against her will, she blocked the event from her memory seconds after it had happened and no one ever found out about it until she came face to face with her attacker.’

‘Elizabeth doesn’t think that’s possible, but I’m not taking any chances, we need to find out where this... baby came from.’

‘How exactly do you plan to do that?’ Rodney said sarcastically.

‘That why you’re all here,’ John said, ‘Carson can only help so far as telling us how old the baby is at the moment, he has to wait a week or so more before he can take a DNA sample and start comparisons.’

‘Aren’t there security cameras in the corridors for the sleeping area?’ Ronon asked in his usual lazy manner.

‘If Carson can tell us when,’ Teyla began, following the Satedan’s line of thinking, ‘we can look back on the cameras and see who entered her room around that time.’

‘Good,’ John said pleased that someone had thought of something. ‘Teyla, perhaps you could...’

‘Of course.’

‘Any other ideas?’

‘Other than checking all the cameras for everywhere Elizabeth’s been, no,’ Rodney said with a yawn.

‘Is there anyone in the city with a grudge against Elizabeth?’ Radek asked.

‘Not anymore, we got rid of that brain dead scientist a long time ago; no one else seems to have a problem,’ John said and looked around as silence fell again. ‘OK, let’s work from the time frame Carson gives, if Teyla doesn’t find anything on the video footage, we’ll start looking at any other option we can find.’

The group nodded and moved from the room, Ronon moving close to Teyla and John guessed he was offering to help her. He stayed in his seat for a while more, his day slowly getting worse and his week turning into something massively horrible.

He was now in command of the whole city, and on top of this, he had to control an investigation and keep all the information about Elizabeth and their findings hidden from the SGC until they had an answer. Things couldn’t possible get any worse.


	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth lay in the bed secluded from the main infirmary and somewhat relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with people as they walked by and stared at her. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what people must have thought when she was brought to the infirmary.

She’d spent the last two months completely confused, her body showing her signs that she was pregnant, her mind telling her it was impossible and her heart screaming that if it was real... if it was actually there, that there was no way she was giving it up.

Now that she had the time to sit and think it all through, it scared her and she was having trouble keeping her emotions in check. She wanted to scream, to cry and do so many things, but she was the leader of this facility and she had no one she could really turn to.

She turned away as the door opened; embarrassment at being caught like this washing over her and she instinctively pulled the covers away from her stomach. 

‘Elizabeth?’ Teyla asked stepping carefully into Elizabeth’s view. Elizabeth hastily straightened and composed herself but the pained look on Teyla’s face broke her composure and she turned away as tears began to stream down her face.

‘I just want to be alone, Teyla,’ she said and added a choked “sorry” to the end. She didn’t hear anything for a moment, Teyla seemed to not move at all and Elizabeth was struggling as she waited, but Teyla didn’t move.

‘Elizabeth, I have always been taught that things happen for a reason,’ Teyla started moving back into Elizabeth’s view, ‘my father taught me that the ancestors give us these blessings and they do so for a reason.’

‘Teyla,’ Elizabeth couldn’t stop the stream of tears and she had to take several deep breaths before she could continue. ‘I want the child, but I also want to keep my job, to stay here in command of the expedition.’

‘Do women on your world not work and bear children at the same time?’

Elizabeth choked out half a laugh and dropped her head to her chest. It was surprising sometimes how easy it was to forget Teyla wasn’t from Earth.

‘Most women don’t have to deal with the Wraith and the Genii,’ she said only half giving an answer. ‘I doubt the IOA and the SGC will consent to me staying in another galaxy, under such threat.’

‘My people have lived here with this threat all their lives,’ Teyla offered, ‘I do not see how they can make such a claim over your actions.’

‘They’ll say it’s for my own safety.’

‘And I will say that so is Colonel Sheppard.’

She couldn’t help but laugh, Teyla was right, John was in control of the military aspect of the city and therefore responsible for the safety of everyone, including her. But it didn’t completely help, the weight and fear was still wrapped tightly around Elizabeth’s heart and her laughter soon turned into another sob before she leaned forward on the bed and gave into her tears.

She was only vaguely aware of Teyla’s arms comfortingly around her for several minutes before she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

~~**~~

John pushed up from Elizabeth’s desk and stepped out into the control room, he paused as he listened to Rodney and Radek arguing in hushed tones near the sensor screen. They had taken to debating who the father of Elizabeth’s child was and Radek was in the process of making a bet on the subject.

John moved on before he could hear who Radek suspected and stopped at the top of the stairs to look into the conference room. 

Teyla and Ronon were sitting on either side of the table, each had a computer screen in front of them and both were watching avidly over the footage taken outside Elizabeth’s door.

He turned to move down the stairs intending to stop by the infirmary and ask Elizabeth if she wanted anything to eat before hitting the mess hall, but he was stopped.

‘Colonel.’

‘Chuck?’

‘The Daedalus just reported in sir, their two days away and apparently have a VIP on board.’

‘A VIP?’ John asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know, Colonel Caldwell wouldn’t tell me, he’s been insisting on talking to Doctor Weir.’

‘Open a channel,’ John ordered following the tech back to his seat. ‘Daedalus, this is Sheppard.’

‘Colonel Sheppard,’ Caldwell’s voice returned over the radio, ‘we were expecting Doctor Weir.’

‘Elizabeth’s... unavailable at the moment. I’ve been told you have a VIP on board, we’d like to know who so we can make the appropriate preparations.’

‘Sheppard,’ a different voice said and John creased his brow in slight confusion while he attempted a small prayer that he was wrong.

‘General?’

‘In the flesh,’ General O’Neill replied, ‘well, almost anyway. Where’s Elizabeth?’

‘She’s... been in the infirmary for a few hours,’ John said and winced.

‘Why?’ Jack asked extending the word slightly.

‘Check up, sir,’ was all John said hoping he would drop the subject.

‘For a few hours?’

‘You’d have to ask Doctor Beckett about that sir,’ John said closing his eyes and wishing to be back in Antarctica for the first time in a very long time.

He was thankful that no one pressed further into the topic and the communication was soon after cut. Without a word, John left the control room and headed to the infirmary.

~~**~~

John ignored the rumbling in his stomach as he moved towards the infirmary. His earlier thought to offer Elizabeth lunch had vanished as a small amount of panic settled in.

General Jack O’Neill held the highest level of authority over anything related to Atlantis, including Elizabeth’s post and with him now only days away and unexpectedly aboard the Daedalus, they had a huge problem.

‘Carson,’ John called as he entered the infirmary.

‘He’s in with Doctor Weir, sir,’ one of the nurses told him and before she could stop him he hastily crossed the room.

‘Carson,’ he said again as he barged through the door and stopped dead.

The covers that had previously covered Elizabeth had been pulled down and her scrubs shifted to uncover her stomach. The small swell was what held his attention for a moment before his eyes drifted over a small hand held medical device.

He’d seen the device once before, Carson had brought it to a meeting and explained what it was for. One had been sent back to Earth after that for testing as the instrument was solely designed to check the health of a growing unborn baby.

John’s eyes drifted to the monitor behind the doctor, a clear view of the baby was there for just a second before Carson removed the device from Elizabeth’s stomach.

‘Colonel?’ the doctor questioned looking affronted that he had been interrupted.

‘Er,’ John stuttered for a moment before the memory of his conversation moments ago floated back to his brain, ‘we have a problem,’ he said bluntly. ‘You have to release Elizabeth from the infirmary.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Elizabeth asked lowering her shirt to cover her stomach.

‘General O’Neill is on the Daedalus.’

He watched as Elizabeth let out a sigh and closed her eyes, this was the last thing she needed, a surprise visit from the man who had absolute control over her career.

‘When does it arrive?’ Carson asked looking down at Elizabeth.

‘Day after tomorrow,’ John answered his eyes once again on the light bump of her stomach where her hand rested.

‘In that case, Elizabeth can stay here tonight and return to work tomorrow under the order to eat properly if she wants to keep this wee one,’ he patted the hand resting on her stomach as he spoke and gave her an encouraging smile before leaving the room.

‘Sorry,’ John muttered after a moment.

‘It’s not your fault, the General seems to...’

‘I mean about barging in,’ John interrupted, ‘I should have knocked or something.’

‘John,’ she said beckoning him closer to the bed, ‘you stepped into my bathroom this morning and found me in my admittedly small night clothes. I think I can handle you seeing my stomach now, but next time I find out you’ve seen me in so little...’ she paused for a moment leaning in close to him, ‘you better be wearing less.’

John looked shocked at her for a moment but her smile convinced him she wasn’t being serious.

‘I’m gonna go get lunch, you want me to bring you something?’

‘Yes please,’ she said with a tired grin. John nodded and left the room, a little more relaxed now that he was sure Elizabeth wasn’t going to be confined to the infirmary and leave him to deal with the General.

~~**~~

Elizabeth found herself tugging once again at the loose t-shirt, she’d become very aware that the baby was beginning to show and with the Daedalus mere minutes away, her nerves had kicked in.

She reached down again and pulled the material once again from her stomach only to find Ronon’s hand on her arm.

‘You keep doing that, he’s gonna know something’s up.’

She dropped her hands to her sides and only a moment later stuffed them into her pockets. She hated waiting, but worst of all was waiting to see if her superior would notice any changes about her.

‘Did you and Teyla find anything on the videos?’ she asked wanting something else to occupy her mind.

‘Not yet, Teyla’s still going through them, she’s moved the screen thing into her room so the General won’t see what she’s doing.’

Their conversation was done in low tones and Elizabeth found herself also thankful for the lack of people in the area. The gate room, unlike the control room, was mostly left empty.

Before Elizabeth could open her mouth to say with a sardonic tone that it was probably a good idea, the transporter beam from the Daedalus activated and Jack appeared in front of them. Elizabeth plastered the usual greeting grin on her face as best she could.

‘Welcome back to Atlantis General,’ she said as he eyed her suspiciously. She resisted the urge to tug once again at her shirt as he moved towards her.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said politely a similar smile on his face, she watched him eye Ronon for a second. ‘I take it someone can give me a proper tour before I come back to annoy you?’ 

‘Yes, absolutely, but I don’t think Ronon’s the best person for that.’

‘Still not very talkative?’ Jack asked looking back at him.

‘Well there is that, but he has other things to do; like greeting our new expedition members.’

‘Ah, that’ll do it,’ Jack said grinning at him. Silence fell for a moment as Jack looked around. She caught his eyes as they travelled around the room and back to her, but instead of resting on her face, he ran them down her body and she knew from the look on his face that he’d seen the change.

She tried desperately to keep her face blank as he watched her and just as he opened his mouth to speak, a very welcome distraction came their way.

‘General,’ John said stopping not far from where they stood and giving him the appropriate salute.

‘Sheppard,’ Jack said with a cautious smile at him then turned back to Elizabeth. ‘My tour guide?’

‘The best we have,’ she said a little too brightly.

‘See you soon then.’

She held her breath as he walked away and the second he was out of sight she screwed her eyes shut and let the breath out.

‘You okay?’ Ronon asked.

‘He noticed.’

‘Maybe he won’t say anything.’

Elizabeth couldn’t help the short laugh she let out; she knew only too well she wouldn’t get away with this now.


	3. Chapter 3

Teyla left her room quickly, the tablet PC clutched tightly in her arms as she took off down the corridor at a run. She rounded the corner and was sharply knocked to the ground.

‘I am sorry,’ she said hastily as someone’s hands took hold of her arm and hoisted her off the ground.

‘You all right?’ John asked as he turned to see their visitor picking up the thankfully blank computer.

‘I am fine,’ she said, ‘I was just coming to find you,’ she told him as she watched the stranger hand over the tablet to John.

‘You find something?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said tentatively her eyes once again returning to the stranger.

‘Err, Teyla, this is General Jack O’Neill, General, Teyla Emmagan, the least annoying member of my team.’

‘And the fastest too,’ Jack said with a grin.

‘I am sorry,’ she said attempting to hide her embarrassment. ‘I did not mean to knock you down.’

‘I’ll live,’ he said not dropping his cheeky grin.

‘Teyla,’ John said drawing their attention apart and handing over the computer, ‘Elizabeth’s in the control room, maybe you should let her know what you’ve found while I finish our tour.’

‘Of course,’ she said accepting the computer back and moving around them and down the corridor. She mentally berated herself for the accident with such an important guest as she made her way up to the control room.

‘Hey,’ Ronon said as she stepped up the final steps to the control room.

‘John said Elizabeth was here.’

‘Conference room, pacing a hole in the floor,’ he said and Teyla could see the small amount of concern on his face.

‘Is she all right?’

‘She thinks the General noticed.’

Teyla gave him a comforting smile and placed her hand on his arm before turning and moving towards the conference room. As he had told her, Elizabeth was pacing the floor at the back of the room, a cup in one hand and her other resting on the small bump of her belly.

Teyla moved into the room and placed the computer on the table before taking a seat at the corner near Elizabeth. She waited in silence as Elizabeth turned, crossed the room paused to let her head drop and then moved to the seat nearest Teyla.

‘He noticed,’ she said not looking at Teyla.

‘Has he said anything?’ She asked with a raised brow.

‘No, John had good timing for once and dragged him off for a tour. They’ve been gone for hours.’

‘They are almost done,’ Teyla said then regretted it as fear flashed across her friend’s face. ‘I do not see that there would be any reason for him to replace you. You are not a field officer, your gate activity is minimal and the Wraith believe Atlantis no longer exists.’

She watched as Elizabeth ran a hand across her forehead in what Teyla had come to assume was an attempt to flatten out the creases of stress.

‘I hate this,’ she admitted dropping her hand to the table to wrap around the cup with her other hand. ‘The Daedalus is here for two days, I hope he doesn’t plan on staying longer than that.’

Teyla smiled for a moment then switched on the PC monitor and pushed it towards Elizabeth.

‘The time codes on this video do not make sense,’ she said attempting to distract Elizabeth. She reached out and pressed play on the screen and both watched the corridor outside Elizabeth’s room.

It was still and silent for a moment, until one of the scientists passed into view and walked past Elizabeth’s room with his head down looking at a palm computer. He reached the end of the corridor and turned out of sight and seconds later the time stamp in the bottom corner changed from 04:03 to 05:19.

Elizabeth’s hand came quickly up to pause the video. She skipped back to watch again, keeping a closer eye on the time stamp as the man walked around the corner; and she watched the time once again skipped.

‘There’s an hour missing,’ she said looking back up at Teyla.

‘One hour and sixteen minutes. The man is Doctor Philips, his room is at the end of the corridor he turned down,’ she said having watched the video that covered the next corridor and looking at the personnel list to find out his name.

‘See if Rodney or Radek can recover the missing hour,’ Elizabeth said her eyes fixed on the doorway. Teyla turned in time to see John and General O’Neill taking the last few steps up towards them.

She nodded to Elizabeth, switched off the computer monitor and before moving quickly from the room she placed a comforting hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder.

~~**~~

John stopped outside Elizabeth’s room; it had been three days since he’d been here for a completely different reason. Now though, he wasn’t sure he liked this reason any better. The Daedalus was leaving in little under an hour and General O’Neill had just told him he was staying in the city.

Elizabeth was not going to like this one bit.

She’d be missing the departure, as Carson had taken that morning to grab a DNA sample from the baby and had sent Elizabeth back to her room to rest.

He could turn away now, walk back down the corridor to the transporter and go see if Teyla and Radek had gotten anywhere with the video, but despite not wanting to give Elizabeth bad news, he wanted to use this time to finally talk to her about how she planned to do this. He sucked in a deep breath and finally reached out to ring the chime.

He waited, but she didn’t answer and fear flooded him that she couldn’t. He reached out and rang the chime again and shifted impatiently hoping she hadn’t collapsed again. Barely a moment passed before he opened the door and stepped in.

‘Elizabeth?’

‘I’m here,’ she said, her voice small and tired and John whirled around to find her sitting in the long bench like chair in the corner. He halted for a moment, taking in how small she looked curled against the wall with her knees drawn up as high as possible and her hands tucked against her stomach.

‘General O’Neill’s staying in the city,’ he said, wanting to get that portion of his visit over with. Her head dropped and John couldn’t believe how uncomfortable that single action made him feel.

‘I know,’ she said quietly, ‘he was here last night, asking questions.’

‘About what?’ John asked when she didn’t elaborate.

‘My relationships with members of the expedition; mostly, you, Rodney, Radek and Ronon.’

‘No direct questions about the baby?’ he asked taking a seat on the bench just in front of her feet.

‘No,’ she told him, ‘but he did start asking what I’d do if someone got pregnant.’

John waited; he didn’t want to ask the obvious question about her reply, he knew her well enough in their year and a half together to wait for her to answer it on her own.

‘I told him I didn’t know,’ she admitted, ‘told him that working in the city while carrying a child shouldn’t be any different than working on any military base.’

He could tell by the way her voice trailed off that the weight of the last few days was quickly crashing down on her. He didn’t want to speak, he wanted to change the subject, but knew his other topic of conversation was no different from the current one.

‘I don’t know what to do, John,’ she admitted timidly and John instinctively reached his hand out and placed it on her knee. ‘I don’t know if I can do this and fight the IOA, I don’t even know if I could do this on my own back on Earth.’

His heart began to thud in his chest as he watched a single tear slip down her cheek, she shouldn’t have to deal with this, every other woman would go into work, tell their boss they were pregnant and then get back to their job; but Elizabeth couldn’t even do the telling part.

Worst of all, he thought as he sat watching her struggle with her own emotions, was that he didn’t have a clue what to do to help her. Silence fell again and John couldn’t take his eyes off her, so fragile at the moment, he’d never thought he’d see her vulnerable like this, never considered that something so small and harmless could hurt so much.

He moved as she wiped tiredly at her face and stood beside her, she didn’t look up or even protest as he reached down and picked her up carefully from the bench and carried her over to the bed. He eased her down carefully and pulled the covers up before he sat down next to her on the edge.

‘You won’t have to do anything alone, Elizabeth,’ he said with confidence, ‘deal with the IOA, look after a baby, nothing. You’ll always have me, Teyla and I’m willing to bet Ronon to help you; just don’t let the geeks near it,’ she managed a half laugh, half sob at him for that comment.

John shifted on the bed and reached his hand out to wipe away the tears she’d shed. She closed her eyes for a moment against his touch and John felt a familiar flutter in his chest as he felt her press her face against his palm.

He moved his hand from her face but didn’t return it to his lap or the bed at his side, but instead, he moved it down to rest on the slight raise of her stomach, daring himself to touch her so intimately.

‘I don’t want to break in a new leader,’ he said earning a short laugh. ‘If I have to go deal with O’Neill, then I’ll go do it, as far as I’m concerned, you belong here, in this city with us. You picked this team; you should stay in control of it, although, I haven’t worked out why I’m on it.’

Another laugh and John felt her stomach move under his touch.

‘Get some rest, Elizabeth,’ he said finally pulling his hand away from her body. ‘I’ll talk to the general, get this over with.’

~~**~~

‘General,’ John called jogging to following Jack and Lorne down the corridor.

‘There you are,’ Jack said turning around, ‘we were just looking for you, actually we were wondering where Elizabeth is, but you’ll do.’

‘Thanks,’ he said somewhat downcast at being second best. ‘We need to talk, sir.’

‘We have mouths,’ Jack said. ‘I’d say there was evidence to suggest we can. Not so sure about the need though.’

‘Sir,’ John said looking more harassed than he felt.

‘All right, where’d you like to go?’ he asked quickly thanking Lorne for the additional tour.

‘There’s a meeting room on the level below us.’

‘Lead the way.’

John led the way in silence to the small meeting room on the level below; he stopped and opened the door to let the General in first then followed him in with a deep breath.

‘Nice,’ Jack exclaimed, ‘cosy. Holds what? Five, maybe six people?’

‘We guessed it was for small community meetings,’ John told him and then let the silence kick in again.

‘Let me guess,’ Jack started after a while and as he took a seat in the middle of the room. ‘Topic of conversation; Elizabeth Weir.’

‘Yes, sir,’ John said a little surprised that he knew what this was about.

‘How far along is she?’

‘Sir?’

‘Come on Sheppard, I’m not blind, I spent over a year trying for a baby with my wife, I noticed everything from the day we found out she was pregnant.’

‘Beckett estimated 16 weeks,’ he said eventually.

‘Are you the father?’ 

‘No, sir, she doesn’t know who is, or how it happened,’ John admitted wondering for a moment if the way he acted around Elizabeth was that obvious.

‘How can she not know?’

‘Elizabeth told Carson that she hasn’t knowingly slept with anyone in the last few years. Teyla and Ronon have been checking security cameras for Elizabeth’s corridor for the last few days, going back as far as 19 weeks and working forward until about 14 weeks.’

‘Teyla found something the other day?’

‘The time stamps at four in the morning were off just over 16 weeks ago, she’s been carrying on while Radek tries to work out why.’

‘I’ve been in several meetings with her over the last few days, she didn’t tell me this because...’

‘You really need to ask, sir?’

‘She’s afraid she won’t have a job?’

John nodded, he knew Teyla had told Elizabeth that women in this galaxy had carried children despite threat for many years, but when it was happening to them, it felt weird.

‘Look, I’ll tell her this as well, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s no one better qualified to run this expedition than Elizabeth Weir. She’s made a lot of hard choices out here, including trusting you as her second in command... and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

‘But I have to admit, it’s not going to be easy keeping her place against the hungry green monsters of the IOA. Elizabeth started this expedition and if I have anything to say about it, the only way she’ll leave it, is in a body bag, or if the city is destroyed.’

‘Isn’t it your choice, sir?’ John questioned tentatively.

‘Yes and no, I have more control over it than most of the IOA, but if they disagree with me, they’ll go to a higher power.’

John bit his tongue, he wanted to say that it was a coward that went over someone’s head, but over the IOA’s head was only the President of the United States.

‘If it comes to that,’ Jack continued, ‘then you just have to hope that my report on behalf of Elizabeth will outweigh their cowardice.’

‘Thank you,’ John said with his head low the whole experience had been a whole lot easier than he expected.

‘Now, where is the lovely doctor, I need to talk with her.’

‘Resting, sir, Carson took a DNA sample from the baby an hour ago.’

‘I’ll catch her later then,’ he said pushing up from the chair and walking towards the door. ‘What does it take to get to the main land these days?’

John just smiled at the general as he followed him out the door and down the corridor.

~~**~~

‘You look surprisingly healthy for a four month pregnant woman who not six hours ago had a needle in her stomach,’ Jack said approaching Elizabeth in the queue for hot food in the mess.

‘And now my stomach is churning,’ Elizabeth commented with a look of amusement on her face, ‘thank you for the visual reminder of my morning... and for letting half the city know what’s wrong with me.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said bouncing on the balls of his feet at her side. ‘I think someone wants to see you,’ he said catching sight of Doctor Zelenka standing just in his sight and fidgeting nervously.

He watched her turn to look at him and caught Radek’s fearful smile before she turned, leaving the queue to go and talk to him. Jack followed a second behind her wondering if this was something he should be listening too.

‘I could have waited for you to...’ Radek started stuttering slightly.

‘Radek, you found something?’

‘Oh yes, right,’ he said jumping slightly and Jack saw his eyes flick down to Elizabeth’s stomach. ‘The erm, video that Teyla was watching with the missing time,’ he said and she nodded for him to continue. ‘I spent quite some time trying to recover the missing video, until I realised the reason it wasn’t working was because there was no video.’

‘No video?’ Jack asked still keeping his distance and noting that instead of looking over at him, Radek’s eyes once again shot to Elizabeth’s stomach.

‘It wasn’t there to begin with,’ he said when he looked up; ‘the camera was turned off for one hour, sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds.’

‘Does everyone have access to do that?’ Jack asked.

‘No,’ Elizabeth said turning to him and moving them away from the doorway. ‘Only a select few members; myself, John, Rodney, Radek and Major Lorne.’

‘Yes,’ Radek said, ‘yes, I was able to find out whose codes were used, they didn’t try to hide it.’

Jack turned back to Radek just as Elizabeth did, his eyebrow raised in curiosity just as hers was.

‘Well,’ he said impatiently after a moment.

‘Elizabeth,’ Carson stepped into the room and moved quickly towards her. ‘I’ve got the results, you’re gonna want to see this, love.’


	4. Chapter 4

‘Colonel?’ John started as the nurse approached him; he had been too busy looking for Carson to notice her approach. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

‘I was just looking for Doctor Beckett.’

‘He went to talk with Doctor Weir,’ she said and John gave a short breathy laugh.

‘I hope he’s having better luck finding her than I am.’

With that, he turned and moved back out of the infirmary; so far he’d had no luck finding anyone who could give him information. Elizabeth was supposed to be resting, but it had been six hours ago that he’d left her room and it didn’t shock him that she was no longer there.

However, she was also not in her office, the conference room, the control room, the balcony or any of the other three hundred places it felt like he’d tried.

He’d given up twenty minutes ago looking for her and decided he just needed to find out if they were any closer to knowing what happened to her. So he’d gone in search of Radek and once again spent twenty minutes searching for what seemed to be the impossible.

‘This city is far too big,’ he said catching up with Ronon and Teyla as they left the gym. ‘Have either of you in the last few hours seen Elizabeth, Radek or Carson?’

‘Nope,’ Ronon said shortly, ‘I need to shower,’ he added then turned a corner and was gone.

‘Elizabeth did not have breakfast this morning; perhaps she has gone for lunch.’

John checked his watch, Teyla was right, it was lunch time. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

‘I knew there was a reason you were on my team,’ he said with a bright smile and then separated from her to head for the mess hall.

He stepped in and scanned the room, nothing. He was beginning to think everyone was avoiding him. He’d get a complex this way, spending hours chasing people around the city for answers he wasn’t completely sure they’d give him.

‘Sir?’

‘Lorne, tell me you’ve seen Elizabeth, Radek or Carson lately.’

‘All of the above sir, about five minutes ago with General O’Neill.’

‘Wouldn’t happen to know where they are now, would you?’

‘Sorry sir, they left a few minutes ago, looked pretty serious,’ he said and watched as John shifted uncomfortably. ‘Sir,’ he said stopping John from turning away. ‘Is something wrong with Doctor Weir, she seems... different lately.’

‘Sorry Major,’ John said meaning the words. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, but I can’t tell you anything.’

John turned before Lorne could ask anything else and headed out of the room at top speed. A serious sudden get together in the mess could only mean that both of the doctors had found something of interest. John seriously suspected that Elizabeth wouldn’t want to hear either piece of information in a public area.

He crossed the gate room and took the stairs two at a time. He wanted to know, it was now driving him crazy, someone in this city was undoubtedly the father of that baby and he had to know who. What he’d do with that information he didn’t know.

Kill them? Someone had dared force themselves on Elizabeth and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

Despite what would happen, he would still love for the baby to be his. The chance to be a father, to feel it move and kick inside the most beautiful woman in two galaxies, be there for the birth.

He had denied for years his feelings for Elizabeth because of her rank in the city, she was the leader and he knew the chances of getting close would be dangerous for both of them career wise.

Hell he wouldn’t care who the kid belonged to, he’d be there like a father anyway if it meant he could be with her. But he’d still have to pound in the head of the actual father. He could list three people off the top of his head who had caused problems for Elizabeth in the past and if any one of them had still be living in the city he’d have beaten them up days ago.

Spend years punishing them? The worst and most horrible jobs in the city were theirs now.

Or nothing, it was possible after all that Elizabeth did know everything that was going on. She had admitted after all that she’d kept the baby a secret for fear that she’d lose her job, but he couldn’t honestly believe she’d lie, especially to him.

He stopped halfway up the stairs. What if he was the father, what if after all this they just didn’t remember that night. There’s no alcohol in the city except for the wine kept under lock and key in the mess, but that was saved for extra special occasions as it was the best of Athosian wine.

There had been no such celebrations in Atlantis for over eight months. If it had happened from an overdose on Athosian goodness, she would have been excessively close to her due date by now.

His heart was pounding in his chest; he couldn’t believe this was happening. Even in his wildest of dreams this had been much easier to deal with. But then again, in those dreams, Elizabeth had willingly slipped into his bed. 

He rounded the corner at the top and jumped over the last three steps to the conference room. He didn’t hesitate to push the door panel open and step uninvited into the room.

‘...DNA matches Colonel Sheppard.’

~~**~~

She knew he was going to say that before he’d even finished the sentence. Her temples were throbbing under her fingers, her heart felt as though it had stopped and she wanted nothing more right now than to give into the swaying motion of her stomach and pass out.

Once they’d stepped into the room the General had taken control, asking Radek first whose command code has been used to stop the camera. Naturally, Radek had stuttered to explain how he found out, avoiding the actual answer.

John Sheppard. He’d stopped the video camera for over an hour. But why? And how was it that she didn’t remember him coming to her room? She was sure she’d remember the experience, she’d love to have that memory, she’d lost track of the fantasies and dreams she’d had about him.

‘Aye, that makes sense, as the baby’s DNA matches Colonel Sheppard.’

She squeezed her eyes closed, the door had opened somewhere in the declaration. Someone had heard that last piece of information and she wasn’t willing to look up and find out whom.

‘I’ll assume that like most conference rooms, if the door is closed that means all people who are needed in the meeting... are actually in the meeting?’

There was no reply to Jack’s comment, no movement, just silence as whoever had entered stood probably in shock over what they’d heard.

‘Sheppard,’ Jack shot and Elizabeth had to bite her lip to stop from whimpering. This was far from the way she’d have wanted him to find out.

She heard movement and dared herself to look up only to see John’s back as he left the room. She could feel all the eyes turn away from the door towards her and had to clench her jaw to stop herself snapping at them all.

Radek and Carson were still in the room. The General was probably more confused than she was, considering she’d told him she had no personal relationships with anyone. And to top it off, she hadn’t been able to tell John properly.

As the seconds ticked by she found it harder and harder to tell the difference between wanting to throw up and the need to pass out. Both were looking equally appealing, as either way she’d get out of the room and get their eyes off her.

She composed herself quickly and then very slowly pushed herself into a standing position. She swallowed back the need to vomit as she looked at the three men still standing in the room watching her.

‘Thank you,’ she said mostly to Carson and Radek. She pushed away from the table where she’d been leaning and felt the small familiar pang in her lower back. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I need...’ she pulled her hand to her stomach and swallowed again, ‘to lie down.’

‘I’ll walk...’

‘No, thank you,’ she said cutting Jack off from offering to walk her back to her room. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She moved away from the table and slowly circled it to the door. Even as she made her way cautiously down the stairs she could feel their eyes on her back. She was willing to bet they all knew where she was really heading.

~~**~~

John crossed his room, paused and kicked the wall before he turned again and paced back to the other side. He paused again, kicked the wall and turned to slump against it.

For over a week, one whole week, he’d gone between being afraid she’d found someone else, to wishing the baby was his. So why was it now so hard to accept that the baby was his?

It was impossible, he’d never slept with Elizabeth, he’d only been in her room four times since they’d moved into Atlantis and two of those times had been in the last week.

The door opened uninvited and John looked up ready to snap at whoever had dared to disturb him; but the comment died as his eyes met Elizabeth’s. She was pale, looking ghostly white and like she wanted nothing more than to find a comfy spot on the floor. 

Instinctively John pushed away from the wall and moved towards her, his arms reaching out as his brain ticked over the idea that she looked ready to pass out. Instead though, and to John’s complete surprise, she moved forward and inserted herself between his arms.

He felt her arms around him, her head on his chest and the small shudder of her body as she tried to keep her composure. This was all too strange and yet so much like a dream he’d had not too long ago.

Only in this dream, he’d been working at his computer and had for no reason got up and gone to see her. She’d been waiting for him, wrapped herself around him, just as she did now and things had...

‘John,’ Elizabeth broke his train of thought, ‘I need to sit down?’

John pulled her closer and turned so she had her back to the bed before he eased her down to sit on it. He crouched in front of her looking up at her pale face trying to work out if she was all right.

‘I just need a minute,’ she said. John pushed up from the bed and moved to the small fridge on the other side of the room to grab a bottle of water. He handed it to her without the lid and sat carefully beside her; he had a feeling this was going to be a long night.

A short silence fell between them, but John couldn’t look away from her. He watched the colour slowly reforming in her cheeks, her hand as it came up to tuck the loose strand of hair behind her ear. He followed the hand as it returned to her lap and watched her fingers stretch out to brush against her belly.

‘Knowing whose it is hasn’t put you off having it?’

She looked up sharply at him and he knew he’d said something stupid. Elizabeth leaned down, placing the water bottle on the floor and then turned back to him. 

‘I’d keep this baby no matter what, John, even if it belonged to... Caldwell,’ John screwed up his face. ‘It’s just lucky that it’s yours,’ she reached out and took his hand in hers and his eyes dropped as she flattened his palm out over the small bump.

He licked his lips several times, his mouth feeling oddly dry as he searched for the words. She was offering him the chance to be a part of it, to step into her life and that of her... their baby.

Their baby, it had a nice sound to it and John couldn’t hide the smile that spread across his face.

‘We’re having a baby,’ he said simply lifting his head and finally looking away from his hand still pinned to her body by her own hand. It felt strange to say, considering he didn’t remember making the baby and there’d never been anything beyond small flirting between them.

‘Yes we are,’ she said raising her free hand to touch his face.

He reacted without know why, his brain whirled at the statement he made being confirmed. They were having a baby! He and Doctor Elizabeth Weir were going to become parents.

He’d pulled his hand away, sharper than he’d meant to and got quickly to his feet. He stood there for a moment looking down at her, hurt and fear on her face as she looked up at him.

‘John?’ 

‘I don’t know about you,’ he said pausing to lick his lips, ‘but this is a little too strange for me. That can’t be my baby; I was never in your room or had you in here long enough to... do that.’

‘John.’

‘I heard Carson saying the DNA matched mine, but I still can’t see how it’s possible. I want to remember making a baby... with any woman, so until I know for one hundred percent surety that I made... that, then it’s not mine.’

Somehow, John felt dirty. He couldn’t look at her, the last time he’d looked at her while he’d said the words “with any woman” she had tears brimming in her eyes and there was no doubt in his mind that they would be making their way down her cheeks by now.

He was an idiot; he loved her, why couldn’t he just say it? Why couldn’t he just accept the baby, become a father. He was afraid, that was why, he knew the mistakes his own father had made and he was sure he’d make the same ones without even realising it, and that wasn’t what he wanted.

John had been pacing the room furiously as he’d spoke and now stood leaning against his desk. He heard her move, heard the rustle of his bed sheets and her feet on the floor as she moved.

There was silence for a moment and he suspected she was trying to find something to say. He closed his eyes when the door opened and then closed again signalling that she’d left.

~~**~~

Despite the fact that he was running the corridors of an unexplored section of the city, Ronon had to admit he preferred to take his runs at night. The cooled air felt great against his skin, the dimmed lights of the city in sleep mode were calming and the sound of silence was heavenly.

Not to mention, he thought as he turned the corner and took the stairs up to the top level of the tower, his secret balcony.

While this section was still uncharted territory, no one knew that there was a beautiful open balcony on the top level where you could see over the whole city and far out over the ocean.

He slowed down as he neared the door and raised his face to the cool night air as he turned to step through the door and stopped.

‘Long way down,’ he said watching as Doctor Weir swung around a little shocked to have anyone in the same area as her. 

His heart skipped a beat as he caught sight of the tear tracks down her cheeks and prayed silently to the ancestors that no man had caused the pain he saw. He watched as she looked back down at the distance and gave a short laugh.

‘And not a very nice landing.’

Ronon had to walk to the edge to look down at what would be waiting. The usually flat and smooth platform of the city’s walkway was jutted with lamp posts and access points; there was no way anyone who fell would be able to avoid them all.

‘You weren’t planning on jumping I hope,’ he said with just as much amusement in his voice as she had previously displayed. But she didn’t answer. ‘You know who the father is,’ he stated and watched her nod. ‘You told him, and he didn’t want to know.’

‘Not quite, but I am confused about what he wants.’

Ronon moved to one of the walls and sat down with his back to it and the edge of the balcony to his side.

‘He told me yesterday that he wanted to help me, that he wouldn’t let me do anything alone; even offered yours and Teyla’s help.’

‘And now?’ he asked watching as she straightened out, stretching her back slightly.

‘Now,’ he said heaving a sigh, ‘he’s confused.’

‘What did he say?’

He watched the fresh wave of tears rush down her pale face and had to look away and fiddle with his sleeves as she pushed the emotions aside.

‘That,’ she took a deep breath, ‘that unless I could prove it, that he wasn’t the father.’

‘Sheppard’s an idiot at the best of times,’ Ronon said making her turn sharply to look at him, so far no one had mentioned who the father was. ‘But does it really matter what he thinks?’

‘I don’t know anymore.’

‘Weren’t you going to keep the child anyway?’

‘I...’

‘You’re that child’s mother, and I thought you were stronger than this, that you wouldn’t let his emotional stupidity get to you.’

‘I am not weak,’ she spat. Ronon climbed to his feet and moved back to stand in front of her.

‘Then why are you standing at the top of a tower contemplating suicide?’

‘I wasn’t, I was enjoying the view.’

Ronon smiled, it had been him who had started the idea of jumping from the edge. Though now, she was pissed at him and not John and she was smiling at him as though she could so easily reach out and hit him.

‘You’re just as infuriating as John sometimes, you know that?’

‘That explains why you never call us to your office at the same time.’

‘I’d never win an argument; I have to keep my ground.’

‘That’s better,’ he said watching her shiver in the night air. ‘Now all I have to do is get you to get some sleep and beat up Sheppard.’

‘If I go willingly will you promise to leave John alone?’

‘He hurt you, isn’t it only fair to return the favour?’

‘Normally, I’d say yes, but....’ Ronon watched as she turned away and wiped at the tear streaks on her face.

‘You want to give him time to come around,’ she nodded and tried to hide another shiver. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you back.’

Silence followed them back through the city, he let her walk slightly ahead of him, a respect given to any woman on Sateda who bore a child. The memory was still a little painful, things he’d long ago lived for and now was lost in these new friends. 

But this woman deserved to be treated the way he’d once seen his best friend treat his wife; as one treading the path of beauty.

‘You know,’ she said as they slowly made their way up to her level. ‘You’re the last person I would have expected to sort me out. Well maybe second to last.’

‘Yeah, I should imagine McKay would have just made things worse.’

The laugh she gave was playful, he’d hit on what she’d been thinking and it amused her. Out of the corner of his eye as he smiled down at her, he caught sight of John standing down the corridor just out of her vision.

‘Thank you,’ she said reaching out and placing her hand on his arm, ‘and I’m sorry I took you’re private balcony away for the night.’

‘You think I’m not going back?’ he said teasing a smile back onto her lips. ‘Get some sleep; I won’t be there to make you look strong tomorrow.’

She gave him a smug grin before she opened her door and vanished into her room. Ronon turned towards John gave him a look of warning and then turned his back and moved towards the corner and the stairs they’d just climbed.


	5. Chapter 5

John thumped the keyboard of his computer and growled at the monitor; the anger of the last two days was building quickly. Two days ago, just before midnight, he’d seen Ronon escort Elizabeth back to her room, watched as the man made her laugh, watched as she reached out and touched him.

He’d planned to make it up to her, the horrible things he’d said and he’d gone there that night to say his apology. The next morning he’d rounded the corner to her room and found Ronon standing outside twirling his gun. The door opened minutes later and he’d seen Elizabeth smile at him and follow him away.

He’d seen them twenty minutes later having breakfast in the mess hall. Since then, where ever Elizabeth was, Ronon was too. Only Ronon wasn’t just shadowing her in his usual over protective manner, he was helping her as best he could. 

He’d bring her lunch, drinks, reports everything. He’d even seen Ronon with her on the balcony, standing in his spot and chatting with her. But that was nothing for what he’d seen this morning.

Last night, he’d decided he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Elizabeth, Ronon had obviously moved in and was in the process of marking his territory. So John was going to use fact to get back at him. He’d never win in a fight with Ronon, even if that was what he wanted to do.

He’d gone very early to Radek and asked him to send him all the scan data of the city for that one particular night where he and Elizabeth were supposed to have created their baby.

As he’d left, he’d heard a pained moan and followed it down the corridor. Elizabeth was leaning heavily against the frame of an open door, her back stretched out and one hand massaging idly at the lowest point.

Out of the corner of his eye and not much to his surprise, Ronon appeared and without even asking if he could, he pushed her hand aside and rubbed at the spot she’d been attacking.

‘I hate those conference chairs, three hours last night in one of them and now my back is killing me.’

He didn’t hear what Ronon said in reply because that was the point he’d turned and walked away. McKay had accused him as he passed of “stomping down the corridor like a love starved puppy”, which John had added to his reasons to be pissed off.

And now, his computer had crashed to make his day just that bit more unpleasant. He thumped the keyboard again and stabbed the power button until the laptop switched off.

He pulled up, grabbed his jacket and left the room quickly making his way to Rodney’s lab, he needed a more powerful computer and Rodney and Elizabeth were the only ones who possessed such items.

‘Give me your computer,’ John said attempting to snatch the tablet from Rodney but the scientist was just a little too quick.

‘Well good morning to you too,’ he snapped back studying John. ‘What’s wrong with your computer?’ 

‘It was ten seconds away from going out my window,’ he snapped trying once again for the computer.

‘Snippy this morning,’ Rodney teased, ‘get up on the wrong side of the bed?’ John reached out half way though and took the tablet pc out of his friend’s hands and sat abruptly down at the desk. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Proof.’

‘Of...’

‘That baby belonging to me,’ he said stabbing at the screen with the stylus.

‘How are you gonna do that?’ Rodney asked, ‘it’s not like there were scans of you acting stupid in the middle of the night.’

John didn’t respond he was on edge enough as it was finding Ronon moving in on Elizabeth while he tried to verify how this whole mess had started. He caught sight of Rodney picking up another computer and joining him at the desk.

‘What are we looking for and when?’

‘Seventeen weeks ago today, four in the morning for an hour.’

‘You didn’t tell me what to look for.’

‘I don’t know,’ he snapped looking Rodney in the eye, ‘something; anything that can explain why I don’t remember...’

‘Okay, okay,’ Rodney said holding up his hands in defeat, ‘just don’t finish that sentence.’

‘Err,’ Rodney said and John looked up ready to kill him if he asked a stupid question. ‘I think I should confess something.’

‘What,’ John said sulking as he returned to his scan results.

‘I ran an experiment that night that Elizabeth didn’t authorise.’

John looked back up at him; he knew the look on his face told Rodney he didn’t have time or patience enough to go through a game of twenty questions.

‘Remember the lab we found under the personnel section, the one with the strange panel in the middle of the room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I switched it on at three am, just before I went to bed. The only thing recorded was a power spike at four and then again just after five.’

John sat watching him, his heart thudding in his chest; those times were extremely close to the time frame in which the camera outside Elizabeth’s room had been disabled.

If the device spiked at four, that gave him three minutes to turn off the camera. Again after five suggested he left Elizabeth’s room at that time returned to his room and turned the camera back on.

‘That’s not all,’ Rodney said drawing John’s attention and temper back on himself. ‘When I went back the next morning, the scan results of the room suggested there was something odd in the air, I found out a few hours later, it had spread all over the personnel section.’

‘What was it?’ John said clenching his jaw.

‘I don’t know, before I could get a good fix on it, it had vanished.’

‘You did this?’

‘I didn’t know what it was going to do,’ Rodney said defensively, ‘I just wanted to check its power levels, I didn’t even turn it on at full power.’

‘That’s probably a good thing,’ John snapped, ‘or the whole of the female population might be pregnant by now,’ John snapped. ‘Do not turn that thing back on,’ he said pointing a finger at Rodney, ‘but I want to know what that thing is and why it picked me and Elizabeth.’

Before Rodney could say anything, John left the lab, he needed to work some frustration out and hoped there was a training session in the gym so he could beat up a few marines.

He was having what had to be the worst month of his life, two weeks ago he’d found out Elizabeth was pregnant, that had been strange enough on its own. Until he’d found out the baby was his.

Ronon was making it clear, that if John wouldn’t help Elizabeth, then he’d help himself to Elizabeth – which only served to annoy John to no end. And now, he found out that Rodney’s inability to follow protocol had caused the whole thing.

He stepped into the gym and found himself glaring at Ronon in the otherwise empty room.

‘Great,’ he snapped dumping his jacket down on the bench.

‘Problem, Sheppard?’

‘One of many,’ John said moving over to the makeshift dummy that had been set up as a punch bag.

‘You seem to be annoyed at everyone lately.’

‘Not everyone,’ John said throwing the whole of his weight behind the first punch, ‘just you.’

‘Me?’

‘I thought it was illegal on Sateda to move in on a pregnant woman who wasn’t carrying your offspring.’

‘It is,’ Ronon replied shortly. John threw another punch at the dummy and felt the material split under his fist. ‘We’re not on Sateda. What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Every time I go to talk to Elizabeth,’ he said punching again, ‘you’re there with a drink or meal or something,’ he punched again feeling angrier now than he had ten minutes ago.

‘So?’

John stopped, glaring at the dummy’s inability to fight back.

‘She’s carrying my baby.’

‘You turned your back on her, made it clear you didn’t want to help with the child.’

He didn’t know what possessed him to do it, but he moved all the same, turning quickly and taking a swing at his friend. Ronon reacted quickly, stepping back to avoid being hit and striking John in the side sharply.

‘I’m only doing what you won’t.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ John snapped taking another swing at him and moving out into the middle of the room. 

He aimed another well timed swing and struck Ronon across the jaw. The force of his swing made him overbalance and Ronon seemed ready for it to happen as he placed a hit at John’s side, pulled his right arm behind his back and pinned him quickly to the ground.

‘I understand that you’re angry with me for being everywhere you’re not. But I’m not interested in her that way,’ he said adding a little pressure with the knees in the centre of John’s back. ‘If there was a Sateda to hold up law, yes, I would be in prison for what I’ve done, but I’m not and unlike you, I won’t turn my back on my friends.’

‘That’s funny,’ John grunted, ‘because that’s what it looks like you’ve been doing.’

‘I’ve been there to help her, which is what you should have been doing for the last two days. You might genetically be that child’s father, but you are acting far from it. If she wanted to tell that child I was the father, I’d accept, because I’m not stupid enough to hurt a beautiful woman and leave her to deal with my child alone.’

John struggled against Ronon’s weight, finding the pain between his shoulders a little too much to bear and the words his so called friend was speaking chafing just as much.

‘If she were a Satedan, she’d be entitled to being treated like a queen right now, instead of having a husband useless enough to give her a life and then walk away.’

‘I’m not her husband,’ John spat continuing to struggle against him.

‘I’ve seen the way you look at her, I’ve seen you tease her and I’ve even seen her tease you. But if you really cared for her in any way, you wouldn’t have hurt her two days ago.’

‘I do care,’ John said quietly.

‘I didn’t hear that, Sheppard.’

‘I care for her,’ he said not really trying to raise his voice.

‘I’m not seeing that. I’ve never seen a woman so hurt from the words of a friend.’

‘I love her.’

Had he meant to say that and had he meant to say it so loud? He felt his arm being released and was numbly aware of Ronon’s knee leaving his back and the weight lifting, but he didn’t move.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ve loved her for a long time.’

‘Then why are you acting like an idiot?’

‘You think I can just tell her?’

‘Most men do.’

‘We’re not on Sateda,’ John snapped pushing himself up to his knees with his back to the door. ‘Military rules stop me from having relationships with higher ranking officers.’

‘Weir isn’t a part of your military.’

‘No, but she is my superior. Not to mention I’m not as good with women as I would like to be, look what I did a few days ago.’

‘I don’t believe you’re bad with women, if you were then she wouldn’t have been that upset with what you said.’

‘That doesn’t help me; I still can’t go up to her and tell her I love her.’

‘No,’ Ronon admitted, ‘she’d hit you for that, you need to apologize first then explain why you were such a dork.’

‘I’ve gotta stop teaching you words.’

‘Sheppard,’ John swung around and up to his feet at the sudden intrusion of another person. General O’Neill stood in the open doorway; John had failed to shut the door when he’d stepped into the room.

He had no idea how much the General had heard, but from the look on his face, he’d heard enough. He stood straight, almost to attention and watched as the general motioned for Ronon to leave. The door was closed behind him and John was left standing alone with the general.

‘Did you even read the code of conduct given to all members of this expedition when you signed up?’

John lowered his head, he hadn’t read them, skimmed the content at the front of the book, but had gone no further than that. 

‘There are no rules about relationships between civilians or even military and civilian. Elizabeth made her own rules about dating to keep the respect of the expedition team,’ he moved further into the room. ‘I think finding her baby belongs to you, just threw that out the window.’

‘Wouldn’t that be just another excuse to kick her out of Atlantis, the IOA aren’t pleased with her being in charge to begin with.’

‘I don’t care,’ he said, ‘I’ve already told you I’ll stand up for her with my life.’

‘And what about me, sir?’

‘McKay gave me a report about this experiment he did on... that night,’ he said, ‘I’ll be taking that report back with me tomorrow, along with everything else I can gather up by then.’

John didn’t find an answer in that information at all and started the process of coming up with a polite way to ask again.

‘In short,’ O’Neill said obviously picking up on his unease, ‘you didn’t start this, it was an accident, but neither of you should have to suffer because of it. Elizabeth made her choice with the baby; it’s too late to change that now. So it’s only fair that you get the same chance to make your own choice. If that happens to bring you both into a relationship... well, then the IOA will have to just deal with that.’

John stood silent for a while; he couldn’t believe he’d just heard that, General Jack O’Neill had practically given them permission to not only become parents, but to become lovers if they chose to.

‘Thank you... sir.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jack said, looking awkward. ‘You have a meeting to get too,’ he said and John checked his watch. ‘Go shower, quickly,’ he added and John had to smile as he turned and left.


	6. Chapter 6

‘Elizabeth, please,’ he begged again as Elizabeth rounded the corner and stepped into Rodney’s lab. She looked around to find him absent from the room and promptly turned and walked past John.

‘I think I heard all you needed to say,’ she said idly running her hand down over her stomach feeling the tight material of her uniform clinging to her skin.

With Jack’s comment in the mess, the news that she was pregnant had circled like wildfire. To top it off, as he’d stepped through the gate that morning, he’d made sure more than one of the guards in the room had known the child belonged to John.

She’d returned to her usual outfit of black trousers and red shirt that morning, the grey of her uniform had bored her and although the greys were more comfortable, she found she preferred her own pants.

‘I’m trying to apologize,’ he offered feebly, but she continued down the corridor and stepped into the transport far enough ahead of him to vanish before he reached it.

The moment’s peace as she moved up to her office was greatly welcome and she smiled at Ronon as she stepped up the last of the stairs and through the control room. 

She had avoided looking at John, when he’d first approached her that morning, he had that familiar puppy dog look that made her heart melt and it had been only the words Ronon had told her the day before that helped her to keep her resolve.

_‘You’re the leader of this city for a reason; you’re stronger than you look.’_

But that didn’t stop John following her around. It was an hour later, that she looked up from her work to see him standing in the control room, he glanced her way sadly and she met his eye for a moment. She still wanted him to be the father, to help her, to be there for everything; but she couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d hurt her.

He didn’t come in or try to talk to her again. For the rest of the day, he just shadowed her, and it became slightly annoying. It was late when she glanced at the clock, the last of her reports written and filed away; she desperately needed to lie down.

She pushed up, caught sight of John and quickly darted out the side door before he noticed her movement. It felt paranoid, checking over her shoulder all the way back to her room, wondering if he’d seen her and followed her through the city. And it was a slight relief when she reached her room with no sign of him.

She opened the door and stepped inside; she took off her jacket and dropped it on the chair before reaching out and closing the door.

It made her jump when John’s hand came up and stopped the door from shutting fully and he stepped inside looking innocently shy. She returned his puppy dog eyes look with a glare, she would not give in to him; he had made it clear he didn’t want to be involved.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said sounding wounded. ‘I shouldn’t have reacted how I did, shouldn’t have said what I said.’

‘You’re just working this out now?’

‘Elizabeth, five minutes before you stepped into my room, I just found out that the baby I wanted was mine anyway. It was a bit of a shock.’

‘It didn’t sound like you wanted it.’

‘Would you just listen to me, please?’

‘I was in shock, it was a little strange to hear that the baby was mine, when I’ve never... I mean we’ve never.... I mean it’s not like we.... erm....’

Elizabeth was getting seriously annoyed with him, he’d followed her around all day and now he was stammering on the possibility that he’d shared her bed, for an hour no doubt. That thought made her wonder how good he was and never failed to make her smile, but he was being far too frustrating right now for it to bring out the good response.

‘If you don’t say what you came here to in the next five minutes John, I’ll call Ronon and have him escort you back to your quarters.’

She watched the shock on his face; he seemed to take that as an insult. He was jealous that Ronon had looked after her in the last few days, always at her side and making sure she ate and slept properly. It had been sweet but she had a feeling she was becoming to rely on it too much.

‘You think this is easy for me? Learning suddenly that I’m gonna be a dad when I had no say in it?’

‘I had no say either, John and it was new information for me too, this isn’t just about you.’

‘You’ve at least had time to adjust to the fact that there’s a life growing inside you, I found out two weeks ago.’ 

He stopped and Elizabeth watched him, he was right, she had more time to adjust to the baby aspect of their situation.

‘I want so badly to be a part of this, Elizabeth, I want to look at you as the mother of my child and hold my baby in my arms the day it’s born. I’ve wanted it for a long time. I’ve wanted to make up for the mistakes my father made, but every time I’ve found a woman who could accept me, I’ve pushed her away.’

She looked away, it was painful to see the fear in his eyes and even more painful to listen to his words. _“The mistakes my father made”_ the words were like the answer to all the questions about him, why he was so stubborn, why he was withdrawn from people who wanted to get close to him.

‘Are you afraid you’ll make a mistake with the baby, John?’

‘I’m afraid of making lots of mistakes, with you and with the baby. I’m afraid that one day, I’ll do something that will make you both hate me and I’ll end up like my father, sitting on the couch staring at the TV with nothing to say but how useless you both are to me.’

Her heart was racing, had that really been what his life was like? Had his dad made one mistake and ended up that way. She took a step towards him and opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off.

‘I’ve wanted to be in your life as more than just a friend for a long time and from the moment I found out you were pregnant, I wanted to help, wanted to let the baby believe that I was its dad. But every time I think of seeing it, five years old and looking up at me as if I’m an evil God while I shout at you for forgetting something stupid, I can’t help but wonder what I’ll be like as a dad to anyone. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not very good with handling my feelings, I’m terrible at showing someone how I feel and I’m worse at stopping myself from doing something stupid and hurting the people I care for.’

He took a step forward and Elizabeth shuddered at the proximity, she didn’t care if he was good at anything, she knew he wouldn’t make the mistakes he was scared of, because he knew better than to do it. She wanted to reach out and touch him, draw her fingers across his lips, lean in and kiss him and run her hands over his chest. She might not remember the night their baby was created, but she would love to find out what she missed.

‘I love you, Elizabeth,’ he said more boldly than he looked, ‘I have since sometime during our first year here. I told myself over and over that I could tell you, that we were never going home so there were no rules.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ She asked quietly, her voice calm as she felt the shiver along her spine at his statement.

‘Because I didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t want to see you in pain and have you forever avoiding me because I was an idiot.’

She felt his hands on her before she’d realised he’d moved, the hand on her stomach was afraid of being there and she wondered if it was a fear of hurting her now or a fear that she would still reject him.

She watched as his eyes dropped and he fixed his gaze on his own hand gently brushing against the slight raise where his child grew. She’d lived in this city with him for three years now, for three years she’d seen him with women, heard tales of what he was like off world. There was no denying he was a handsome man and most women would be taken in by his cheeky charm.

She had been.

But in those three years she’d seen almost all his insecurities, watched him as he avoided talking about his past. Until now that was. She reached up with her hands, placing her left over his hand on her belly and using the other hand to raise his face to look at her.

She wanted to speak, tell him she loved him too, that she’d long ago lost track of when it started. But instead she leaned in letting her eyes drift to his lips briefly before she kissed him.

His response to the kiss was slow; he was obviously shocked by her actions and she waited, holding the kiss as he adjusted to it. When he realised the reason behind it, he began to kiss her back, deepening the kiss with a passion long held. 

She released his hand from against her stomach as he shifted it, and was relieved when he didn’t use it to push her away, but let out a low moan when he wrapped it around her back to pull her in, pressing her stomach gently against his.

They broke apart gasping for breath and John moved his lips down her neck making her very thankful for the first time that the doors in this section of the city had an automatic close time.

‘You know,’ she said as he nipped at her pulse point, ‘we were at this for an hour that night,’ she felt him grin against her neck and reached up to thread her fingers through his messy hair. ‘I have to wonder what we did.’

‘Whatever it was,’ he said moving back up to kiss along her jaw line, ‘it must have been good,’ she had to laugh as he tried to kiss her again. ‘Shall we find out?’ he asked his arms around her waist and a cheeky grin on his face.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she said and captured his head and pulling him back for a deep kiss.

She shivered involuntarily as he snaked his fingers under her shirt and drew patterns up her back, his fingers were cold like ice, and his touch infectious. He drifted up her back, pulling her top up as he went and Elizabeth began to consider if he was aiming on taking the shirt off or reaching her bra.

It was a little bit of a shock when she discovered he had a completely different agenda. With her shirt raised, John dropped to his knees and kissed at the top of her stomach, it was raised enough to indicate pregnancy if that section was all you could see. But he didn’t stop there.

His hands dragged down her sides and he ran his fingers tenderly over the top of her pants until he reached the button. He popped it and slowly dragged the zipper down, teasingly revealing the belly that bore his child.

She had to look away as he kissed the base of the swell, he was being extremely tender and it was pulling at her heart springs, she finally felt as though this was something they’d done together.

He released the edges of her pants and she felt them slip slightly on her hips before John’s hands took hold of her ankle and started to undo her boots. He removed them both and her socks before he moved back up, swiping a quick kiss at her stomach before he stood up and took her lips.

Stole them was more accurate as in the last half hour he’d shown her more compassion and emotion than she’d seen from him in her entire time in Atlantis. She pulled the zipper of his jacket down as they kissed and pushed it off his shoulders. He let go of her long enough to let it drop to the ground and hastily pulled her back against him.

The kiss deepened again and they started tugging at the others shirts trying desperately to pull them off so they could access the skin beneath it; but both trying at the same time only made it harder to achieve.

Elizabeth began to laugh, dropping her hands to his shoulders and taking a quick kiss of his lips.

‘I don’t remember you laughing last time.’

‘You don’t remember last time,’ she said laughing more and then letting out a small shriek as John whirled her around and shoved her playfully back on to her bed. She laughed harder at this, at least until John crawled up the bed over her. He sat on her thighs, one leg on either side of her hips and pushed her shirt up over her head and dropped it off the side of the bed.

‘Do you love me Elizabeth?’ he asked leaning down over her and placing small kisses on her jaw and neck.

‘More than you can imagine,’ she said stopping his actions so she could tease her fingers over his lips.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he confessed returning to the previously serious composure.

‘You won’t,’ she said thinking he meant that having sex would cause her or the baby pain, ‘loads of women do this while pregnant,’ he dropped his head, resting it against her shoulder.

‘That’s not what I meant, Elizabeth.’

‘You won’t hurt me John, I promise,’ she said pulling him back up to look at him, ‘I won’t let you hurt me.’

‘Yes boss,’ he said smiling down at her. She swatted his shoulder playfully and stretched up to kiss him.

‘So,’ she said after they sat this way for a while, ‘what now flyboy?’

His eyes flicked down to her chest and she couldn’t stop the smug look from breaking on her face. He looked back almost seeking permission to take another step towards having her naked under him. She didn’t do anything, wanting him to work it out for himself; he must have known if she didn’t want this, she would have stopped it long ago.

She was thankful when he finally kissed her and then began a track down her throat and chest to her still covered breasts. Anticipation took over as he slowly unclipped the clasp at the front of the bra and eased it apart. She felt his breath between her breasts as he took a deep sigh, and vaguely heard him whisper the word “beautiful” before be placed a few careful kisses against her breast bone.

She dropped her head back against the bed and released the breath of air she had been holding when he finally swiped his tongue over one of her erect nipples. He repeated it before promptly engulfing the bud between his lips and sucking earnestly on it. 

Elizabeth moaned the sensation was unimaginable. She’d dreamed of this, precisely this, the feel of him over her, his lips on her skin, sucking, licking and nipping at her pert nipples at the peak of her over filled and aching breasts.

She felt John shift adjusting himself over her; he was purposely keeping his weight from her body, specifically her stomach, but in the process he had taken to pressing his groin against her trapped legs and she had, for the first time, a good idea just what the sounds she made were doing to him.

But at the moment, he had no idea what effect he was having on her, other than the moans of pleasure which she found woefully inaccurate. He switched breast and flicked at the other nipple as she squirmed against the uncomfortable feeling of wearing wet underwear.

‘John,’ she breathed frustrated and somewhat thankful when he moved away from her breasts and down over her abdomen. He looked up at her and she reached down to pull him back up for a kiss. She loved the taste of his lips, she was sure she’d get addicted to them.

When they broke apart, she tugged at his shirt and lifted it up over his head before she tossed it off the side of the bed so she could use her hands over his chest. His muscles were tense as he kept his weight up balancing on his hands over her, she felt him shudder as she flicked her thumbs over his nipples on her way down.

‘This is how it’s meant to be,’ she said watching her own fingers travel over John’s stomach.

‘Me on top?’

‘No,’ she said with a grin, ‘unhurried, is what I was thinking.’

‘That’s good,’ John said, ‘because I don’t plan to rush this, I want to remember ever second this time,’ he leaned in and kissed her, ‘we should have timed this, I could have said that last time.’

She laughed at him, it was all she could do, other than continue to explore his chest and contemplate just how long he could manage to keep his weight off her.

‘Are you going to stay there forever?’ she asked finally pulling her hands up to wrap around his neck and pull him down. She arched up as he leaned in, pressing her chest against his and they moaned simultaneously at the added contact.

When they broke apart John wasted no time in pushing off down her body and picking up his kisses and nips on her stomach as he moved down. He eased her black pants down over her rounded hips and down her legs. 

He dropped to his knees at the end of the bed where her knees bent to drop off the edge and looked up at her.

‘Do you have any idea how sexy you are?’

She didn’t have the chance, or the words to answer him. John didn’t seem to mind as he leaned in and placed an open mouthed kiss over her panties just above her sex. She gasped noting how close he’d come to the wetness that had been building and then let out a long low groan as he repeated the action over her centre.

He pulled back, but only for a moment to glance up at her and then dragged his tongue through her lips over the top of her underwear. She hitched her legs up on the bed, spreading them wider for him and reached down to grab him only to find he moved away.

Before she could protest at his withdrawal, John began to edge her underwear down over her hips and thighs. She closed her eyes attempting to pull herself together as he slipped them off her feet, she was now naked, bared to his eyes for the first time, at least that she could remember.

John teased at her ankles for a short time before he began to play his way up her legs and over her knees. He ran agonisingly slow patterns up her thighs slowly parting her legs as he went. 

She lay there staring at the ceiling as he moved closer to her centre, the anticipation starting to wind her closer to her own release and her breathing began to catch as he drew closer and closer.

She squeezed her eyes closed when he finally repeated the open mouthed kiss over her now bare snatch. He darted his tongue out and she gasped, but to her surprise, John let out a low rumbling groan. He pulled away for a moment to bring his fingers into play before he began what she could only describe as his feast.

‘Oh,’ she breathed as he placed his hand on the base of her stomach, ‘God,’ she managed to add a little while later as he started flicking his thumb over her clit while circling his tongue at her entrance.

She could feel the flutter of her growing release and desperately tried to stop him, she reached out and tried to push him away, but it seemed the only time she managed to achieve the action he dipped his finger into her and she dropped back onto the bed with a thud and loud groan.

‘John,’ she tried, ‘stop!’ she panted and he finally relented and climbed back up the bed to kiss her.

‘You okay?’ he asked balancing on one hand to run his hand up her arm.

‘I’m not sure I can deal with more than one orgasm,’ she said stretching up to kiss him and then watched as he licked his lips.

‘Shame,’ he said, ‘I wanted to see that,’ he smiled down at her and she slapped his shoulder before catching him by the neck and pulling him down for a searing kiss. It had the effect of taking John by surprise and she used the opportunity to her advantage.

She lowered her hands to his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist before quickly pulling him down onto his side and hoisting herself up until she was sitting over him and grinning down at him.

‘This,’ she said stopping his hands from catching her sides and pinning them over his head playfully, ‘is how it should be.’

She leaned in and quickly nipped at his lips before pushing off down his body. As he had done, Elizabeth removed his shoes and socks before moving up to his waist. She stretched up quickly, flicking over one of his nipples before scattering kisses over his stomach as she undid his pants and began to pull them and his boxers down.

She watched him squeeze his eyes closed and drop his head back on the bed when she wrapped her hands around him. She felt like a teenager defying her parents by sleeping with the school bad boy.

She grinned at his reaction, before wrapping her lips around the head of his penis and sucking as hard as she could. The groan of approval made her hum around him and she earned a loud and extended curse for it.

Elizabeth cupped his balls and felt him tense and shudder, he was too close to losing control and that was not how she wanted this to end. That didn’t stop her from pulling off him, and running her tongue down his shaft where she swirled her tongue around his balls.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said sounding like he really didn’t want to stop her.

She grinned as she pulled back and slid back up his body making sure he felt her breasts and stomach as she moved. His hands wrapped around her waist as she came back up and pulled her close for a kiss. She had to pull back, placing her finger over his lips.

‘You’re crushing your baby,’ she said and John instantly released her. She sat back, trapping his length beneath her and instantly relaxed on him, for a moment before rocking slowly on his length. It didn’t help to relieve any of the quickly building pressure and need for release.

Elizabeth bit her lower lip as she leaned forward, placing her hands on John’s shoulders and raising her hips up. John reached between them and teased his fingers through her sex lips and felt her twitch over him. 

He chuckled at her and took hold of his throbbing length, she couldn’t help but drop her head to watch as he positioned himself, but he didn’t, instead he began to stroke himself as she watched.

She angled herself over him, feeling his head brush over her lips as he continued. He had to stop after a moment to squeeze the base of his cock and then gave in and pushed himself into place.

Elizabeth took a deep breath as she slowly lowered herself onto him. It was an amazing feeling, as she pushed slowly down to the hilt and took several relaxing breaths of air. John ran his hands up her arms, over her chest and down to rest on her belly.

She leaned in, trapping his hands between them and kissed him, long and deep and with more passion that she knew she possessed.

‘I love you,’ she breathed against his lips; then she pushed back and began to pull up almost letting him drop from inside her before she dropped heavily back down. John grunted and his hands dropped to the bed as he squeezed his eyes closed.

She continued, picking up the speed of her movement and trying hard to ignore the pain that was building in her hips. She did and didn’t want this to end all at the same time.

The pain became too much and she dropped down, rocking her hips slowly for a moment with her head down.

‘Elizabeth,’ John said drawing her attention to him, ‘you alright?’ 

‘It’s uncomfortable to do that for a long time,’ she explained and leaned in to kiss him, ‘the meeting this afternoon didn’t help,’ she added with a smile.

John reached up, helping her to continue to rock for a moment as he considered this, she could see the thoughts running through his brain as he tried desperately not to concentrate too much of the feel of her wrapped around him. After a moment he lifted her off him, resting her forward on his chest.

‘Lay on your side,’ he whispered, ‘with your back to me,’ he added helping her move from on top of him and into position. He wrapped his arms around her, running his hand down her side as he kissed at her neck.

She reached behind her and threaded her fingers through his hair to pull him closer as she tipped her hips back against him. John moved down over her hips and down her thigh so he could lift her knee up and hook her leg over his hip. He dragged his nails gently back up her thigh and dipped down the tease her clit with his finger before he reached over and pushed himself back into her depth.

Elizabeth moaned, dropping her head back against him, the new angle was much easier and much more enjoyable. He felt much larger like this and hit all the right spots. It also helped that he had continued flicking his finger over her very sensitive clit.

‘Oh my God,’ she breathed as her orgasm picked up and she felt the fluttering rush through her towards completion. John was thrusting in earnest and his lips on her neck barely concealed the moans of pleasure he was letting out. ‘Don’t hold back, John.’

He groaned loudly into her neck pulling his hand back from her centre for a second to wet his finger before flicking it first over her nipple and then down to flick at her clit again.

That was all it took, she let go and could feel herself tighten on John’s length. She bellowed his name as she began to shudder at the sensation he caused her but she had a feeling he was still fighting his control.

She wanted to feel his release, so she reached down, dropping her hand between her legs and gripping his balls tightly. It worked perfectly, John bit down against her neck and thrust hard and fast a few times before he came deep inside her.

Exhausted and panting, Elizabeth mustered the energy to drop her leg down and rest the knee on the bed a little way in front of her. John wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her body flush with his, he kissed the spot on her neck where he’d bitten her and whispered in her ear.

‘Now I know why we were chosen,’ he said. ‘I love you Elizabeth.’

She vaguely registered his words but didn’t have the energy to ask him about them as she drifted into a pleasant sleep, feeling the covers being dragged up over her bared body.


	7. Chapter 7

John woke the next morning on his front and knew instantly that he wasn’t in his own bed. It took a moment for his fogged brain to realise he’d spent the night with Elizabeth and it was her pale blue sheets that he was laying on.

He tried to moved and heard Elizabeth groan and her weight press down on him. She was up close against his side, her head on the back of his shoulder, arm draped across his back and knee tucked between his legs.

He shifted, turning his face so he could edge slowly onto his side and wrap his arms around her. She was more beautiful asleep, relaxed and really at ease for once. This brought on the memory of a dream; he’d gotten up in the middle of the night and stood watching her for a few minutes before he left her room.

‘What did you mean?’ she muttered and John realised he’d woken her as he moved.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I was awake before you moved. What did you mean, last night? You said you knew why we’d been chosen.’

‘That’s... complicated,’ John said wishing he’d never mentioned it at all. She propped herself up to look at him and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it any longer. ‘McKay may be responsible for what happened.’

‘How exactly is this Rodney’s fault?’

‘You remember that lab he found below sea level at the base of this tower, the one he spent three days asking you if he could check out.’

‘Yes,’ she said suspiciously.

‘He went ahead and checked it out.’

‘What?’

‘The night we can’t remember... he turned on some device at low power and left it running for a few hours.’

‘Okay, firstly, when did you find out about this?’

‘Day before yesterday,’ he said quickly and truthfully.

‘And why didn’t Rodney tell me, even after the test was done?’

‘I don’t know that, he only told me because I was looking for something to explain why I can’t remember making love to you. Not that I put it that way to him.’

‘He tested a device we know nothing about, in the middle of the night at the base of the personnel tower,’ she confirmed and John nodded. ‘I am seriously getting annoyed with him,’ she said throwing the covers off and climbing from the bed. He couldn’t resist watching her as she walked completely bare to the bathroom and vanished through the door.

Her mood didn’t improve, not that John could blame her. He hadn’t realised how stupid it was to test something under where they slept, not until she added it to the list of things McKay did wrong.

They washed and dressed and John followed her out of the room, ignoring the stunned look on Lorne’s face as they passed him and turned the corner. McKay is going to have a bad day, he thought as he followed Elizabeth though the city to the main lab.

‘Where’s Rodney,’ she demanded of who ever wanted to answer.

‘He said something about a lab under the west tower,’ Radek said quickly and John suspected he’d picked up on Elizabeth’s bad mood, ‘but I didn’t know there was one under that tower.’

Elizabeth glared at him for a moment and then turned and left quickly. John thanked Radek and followed her, having to jog slightly to catch up with her fast pace. Rodney had lied to his own team about where he was going, but it seems Elizabeth had put the information together.

There were three sets of stairs to go down in order to reach the very bottom of the tower and all three of them were below the water. They always freaked John out, as all the walls in these levels were made of clear glass and anyone down there had a very good view of the sea life; or lack thereof.

‘Rodney,’ she said sharply making the scientist jump and swing around.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said shocked and stole a glance at John, ‘what are you... I was just... you told her?’

‘You ran an experiment on an unknown device under the personnel wing?’

‘Well yes and no,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said not giving him the option to tell her otherwise. ‘You ran an unauthorised experiment when the majority of our population was in this tower, Rodney.’

‘I didn’t use full power,’ he said smugly. ‘Besides, nothing happened.’

John raised his eyebrow; there was no way that was a good thing to say. He could feel Elizabeth tense and watched Rodney fidget uneasily under her stare.

‘Seventeen weeks ago last night, you ran this,’ she said calmly and Rodney nodded. ‘Then explain to me, how it is that I’m seventeen weeks pregnant and I have no idea how it happened?’

‘I meant at the time, I thought nothing happened.’

‘Rodney.’

‘I’ve been going back over the log data, the stuff the ancient computers pick up, not what our computers got. It seems the microbes that this device releases have the ability to seek out what they call “the perfect grouping”.’

‘What does that mean?’ John asked stepping into the room for the first time as Elizabeth moved to check out the panel.

It hit him like a cold wave, starting from the top of his hair and shuddering down through his whole body only to die at the ends of his toes. Instantly he knew he didn’t like this room.

‘Elizabeth, maybe you shouldn’t be in here,’ he said without even knowing why. They both turned to look at him.

‘Why?’ She asked, but all John could do was shake his head.

‘Anyway,’ Rodney said, ignoring John and attempting to draw Elizabeth’s attention back, but she eyed John with concern for a few more minutes. ‘I was reading in the database that this was a failed experiment to ensure the gene was passed on through procreation. Apparently, it had strange side effects on the people who naturally had the gene.’

He paused to flick open his laptop and scanned an open report.

‘There’s one record that shows a man who lost the ability to have children altogether, and another who lost the ability to walk and some even lost their genetic coding, so they all matched each other and...’

‘Rodney.’

‘It’s designed to pass a boosted version of the gene on to the opposite sex, but have the gene lay dormant in their system only to be passed on to their...’ he indicated Elizabeth’s stomach showing greatly through her tight black pants, ‘progeny.’

‘So I now carry the ancient gene?’

‘Yes, but you can’t use it, it’s only there to be picked up by your children.’

‘So why can’t we remember...’

‘Err, yeah, that’s a part of the programming problem. Apparently they couldn’t find out how to stop people acting without remembering. They always reacted at night, but they had a lot of unexplained pregnancies, most of which they couldn’t match up because of the genetic problem. On full power, this thing would put the top twenty gene carriers on breeding over drive and they would each head for the lowest twenty carriers or in this case, twenty of the people who don’t have the gene.’

‘Why me?’ Elizabeth asked, ‘I’m only one of many people in this city who doesn’t have the gene, Teyla, Heightmeyer...’

‘I would guess,’ Rodney said glancing at John, ‘that some attraction helps. Anyway, look at this,’ he said and moved over to another panel to the left of the one he’d been talking about. ‘That one is a fake, it’s just the casing, I guess they were gonna make another one.’

John watched as Rodney turned on the device and messed with the display for a moment. He closed his eyes against a sharp pain that shot through his back.

When he opened his eyes, he was in his room, sitting at his desk typing at his laptop, he stopped and stared at the screen reading back the report he’d typed in the middle of the night just over four months ago.

He glanced at the clock, 03:58 and then quickly around his room, it was four in the morning over four months ago, the clock on his bedside matched the one on his computer and he saw it flick over to 03:59.

Was this the night that Rodney was running his experiment? Would he in a few minutes time set about switching off the security camera outside Elizabeth’s room and then go and join her?

He glanced at the clock and watched it turn to 04:00 but nothing happened. He waited, wondering if he was just dreaming; perhaps he’d passed out back in the lab and was using his own imagination to put the pieces together.

As he considered this, he reached out and began tapping at the keyboard, bringing up the security log and accessing the cameras. Maybe this was the day before the experiment, he thought, he’d been up late three days in a row after all.

He entered his command code and watched as the camera’s display went blank. He pushed back reconsidering the date and climbed to his feet, he looked at the clock again now reading several minutes past four and headed from the room.

The cool night air washed over his topless shoulders and chest as he walked bare foot through the corridors and into the no longer recording view of the camera. He stopped at her door only to ruffle his hair before he opened it and stepped in.

Elizabeth was awake, sitting on the end of her bed watching the door; or him as he stepped inside. She stood up and John ran his eyes down the small skin tight black shorts and top she wore, but he was distracted as she pulled the top off over her head and wrapped her arms around him and they kissed.

John staggered backward, his back hitting the wall on the other side of the corridor to the lab. Elizabeth and Rodney were watching him, Rodney with curiosity, Elizabeth with concern. She moved away from the panel and stepped out of the room, she reached out and touched him and instantly they pulled apart almost as if they’d been given an electric shock.

‘He turned it on,’ John said almost sounding stupid in the comment, ‘you’re all wrong for me now.’

‘Of course,’ Rodney said, ‘Colonel, are you considering who would be the best person to...’

John bit his tongue, he didn’t want to say what he was thinking, it was wrong, he was with Elizabeth and she was carrying his baby. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was useless and there were so many other women who were right for him.

‘Rodney?’

‘It’ll wear off before tonight,’ Rodney said, ‘I only had it on for a few minutes.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘He’s the one with the strongest gene in the whole city, when that thing is on, he’ll have the urge to procreate and as you now possess the gene and you’re pregnant, you’re at the end of his list of...’

‘And you switched that thing on knowing this?’

‘Well I wanted to show you the log.’

‘Are you sure this will wear off by tonight?’

‘Relatively sure, yes,’ Rodney said.

‘I’m placing him under guard for the day and I want that thing destroyed.’

‘Elizabeth...’

‘Rodney, you said yourself, it can destroy the natural gene carrier in some way. Do you really want to do that to John?’

‘Can I save the log first?’

‘If you can do it without activating the device, then yes. John, I think...’

John knew he shouldn’t have walked away; he should have waited for Elizabeth. He could hear her calling to him as he vanished around corners and up stairways, he even saw her as he activated the transporter and vanished.

~~**~~

He ignored the sound of someone calling his name as he turned the corner quickly and took the last few long strides to the door. 

He couldn’t explain what led him to this particular room, it felt wrong and perfectly natural all at the same time. He stepped in and closed the door behind him hoping whoever had followed would give up when he ignored them.

John just stood there, his back to the door and his eyes wandering around the room, the bed to his left where he’d spent the night. This was Elizabeth’s room, not his and he found he felt strange in it.

He wasn’t completely sure that he would have felt normal in his own room, but he did know that here, he could at least be reminded that she was what he wanted.

When he’d left the lab, he’d wanted to go to so many places, Kate Heightmeyer’s office; the gym to see who was there, talk some random woman out of the corridor into his room. But he had fought it all, the need to create a new life, pass on the gene he’d been blessed, or cursed with depending on his mood.

He didn’t want to impregnate half the city; he hadn’t intended to do it to Elizabeth. He loved her, he’d known that for a long time, and knowing that she loved him just as much made him very sure that going to find someone else would be the biggest mistake of his life.

He moved away from the door and over to the desk that sat under the window. Her computer was gone, probably left in her office over night, but her Palm computer was there along with several small ornaments.

He picked up the nearest one and studied it, the eloquent design suited her perfectly yet the Athosian ornament was completely out of place amongst the other items.

A sudden feeling that he’d lost her washed over him, as if he were sitting in her room after her funeral remembering the good times and chiding himself for annoying her. Yet he knew where she was, or at least where she would go next.

His heart sank with that feeling then skipped as he remembered the feel of her body from last night, the raise of her stomach in his hands as he caressed his baby.

His baby! His heart sank again at the thought, the possibility of what he would or could have just done, instead of finding himself the willing father of one baby Weir; he could have been the unwilling father of more than one.

He turned; slinging the ornament across the room and watching it shatter against the bathroom door. He was going to lose everything, the dread was taking over. By now the IOA had heard the whole story, everything except how and why it had happened.

They were probably right this minute sitting in a cosy conference room on Earth discussing the future of Elizabeth and himself. If anyone would be blamed for this, it would be him, he’d lose his career, he’d lose his command and above all he’d lose his family.

He seized another ornament off the desk and studied it. Would she hate him, for just resigning, get it over with, go out with dignity? Would she despise him if he ran away like Ford had; vanish into the galaxy. He could arrange something, so that someone knew where he was, perhaps they could sneak him pictures of his baby.

He didn’t want that, just pictures of a pretty little face, not feeling it move inside Elizabeth, not feeling the first kick or seeing the birth he wanted it all. The first time it sat up on its own, when it started crawling, walking and above all, hearing the first words.

The ornament flew across the room to join the other one in pieces on the floor by her bathroom and it seemed this time that he’d caught someone’s attention. The door beside him opened and Ronon stepped in to look around the room.

‘I’m not sure Elizabeth would like you destroying her room.’

‘Don’t call her Elizabeth,’ he spat not even knowing why. Perhaps it was just too familiar hearing Ronon use her given name as he usually just called her Weir in front of everyone else and Doctor Weir to her face.

‘Why not?’

‘Just don’t,’ he said unable to convince himself that he was being unreasonable.

‘Okay,’ Ronon said, ‘but either way I don’t think she’ll appreciate you wrecking her room.’

John got to his feet, hatred for this man piling on high. His mind ran quickly through all the time’s he’d seen Ronon with Elizabeth since this started. The meal’s they’d shared, the times he’d seen him outside her room or alone with her.

He hated this; his instincts were telling him the complete opposite to his brain. Elizabeth was wrong, she wasn’t worth being near him, yet he loved her. Ronon was in his way, hitting on the woman he loved, yet he was his one of his closest friends. Teyla… this was the first time Teyla had come to mind and it only served to add to his confusion. She was just as wrong to him as Elizabeth, but for a completely different reason, she was evil like the wraith, yet she was another close friend.

‘Get out,’ he growled at Ronon unable to control the disgust he was starting to feel for himself. His face was burning, his skin heating up with the venom of the situation he wanted to leave, run; do something to kick this feeling out of him. Or better yet, be somewhere else.

‘I’m just making sure you don’t…’

‘Get out,’ he repeated again catching hold of the stylish glass paperweight off the end of Elizabeth’s desk as he moved towards Ronon.

A rush of relief flooded him suddenly; he felt the whole burden of everything he’d thought over the last few minutes dissipate and the fear of fatherhood return.

He looked around trying to catch sight of something familiar that would tell him where he was, but the room span wildly and before he could gather his senses he felt something solid against his back and watched Ronon step up to his side to look down at him.

‘Sheppard,’ he heard his name as if he was a million miles away and then darkness took over.


	8. Chapter 8

‘When?’ Elizabeth asked standing in front of the large monitor in order to talk with General O’Neill.

‘They want two representatives to visit in two days time; they’ll come through the gate with the spare ZPMs that you gave us.’

Elizabeth dropped her head, this would be it, the end of her career, the end of everything she’d come to know and trust in. No more Atlantis, no more Carson as her doctor and above all, no more John.

‘Listen, I’ve already talked to the President, he’s with me on this one, you didn’t plan this; you didn’t ask for it or anything like that, you should be right there in command.’

‘But he’s not making the call on this one, is he?’

‘He doesn’t want to, he was considering joining the reps in Atlantis last I talked to him, but I doubt that’ll happen.’

‘How exactly do you convince people who hate you that you’re the best person for the job?’

‘They don’t hate you,’ he said and she raised her eyebrow at him, just barely meeting his eye. ‘They just don’t know what you have to go through. Hopefully they won’t put Woolsey on this one; two other opinions on you would be to your advantage. I’ll try to be on this trip too; maybe I can kick their asses while I’m out of military jurisdiction.’

She laughed, probably for the first time in months and gave him a fond smile. If only it was that easy, show them Atlantis, show them how she acted and interacted with the people under her command. But she knew better, they all had opinions on how things were really done here and nothing she showed them would make a difference.

‘Doctor Weir,’ she turned to look at Chuck, ‘Doctor Beckett needs to see you, ma’am,’ she nodded and turned back to the monitor.

‘Time for a check-up?’ The General asked.

‘No,’ she said shaking her head for emphasis.

‘Well, duty calls, as they say. I’ll get someone to update you on who’s coming and when.’

‘Thank you General,’ she said, giving a small wave to Daniel who stepped into view behind Jack.

The feed shut off and she listened to the sound of the gate shutting down. She turned, nodded to Chuck; who was watching to check he didn’t need to remind her of Carson’s request, and started down the stairs.

So far, today had been a bad one. Despite waking up draped across the wonderfully warm body of one Colonel John Sheppard, she had discovered that Rodney had run an unauthorised experiment.

Then to top it off, while listening to Rodney rant on about it in the lab, she’d watched as John became affected by the machine and then ran off, the want to be with someone else on his mind.

It had been a short wave of relief when Ronon had told her he was in her room. But that relief was short lived as she was called to the control room and into a short meeting with General O’Neill.

She hoped Carson had good news, she wasn’t sure she could take another problem or even another piece of bad news.

If only.

She knew instantly that her day could only get worse as she entered the infirmary and found Ronon standing a few paces inside. She slowly took the few steps forward to stand beside him and turned to look into the closed off area. The back curtain had been left open giving access to the nurses and a clear view of John lying in the bed.

‘What happened?’

‘He was freaking out, broke a few things and shouted a lot. Then he just collapsed.’

‘His heart rate’s up, and he’s completely confused, but otherwise fine,’ Carson said moving over to join them. ‘Last thing he remembers is standing in the lab this morning.’

Elizabeth checked her watch; it had been two hours ago that she’d watched him drop back against the corridor wall outside the lab.

‘Can I...’

‘Of course,’ he said cutting her off and watching her move to John’s bedside. She heard the curtain close behind her as she looked down at him. 

‘I remember,’ he said simply, his throat dry.

‘Remember what?’ she said quietly matching his volume.

‘The night,’ he said reaching out and she watched his hand as it brushed against her arm and moved to rest on her belly, ‘our night.’

She shifted, placing a hand on his to keep it in place and pulled herself up to sit on the bed beside him. It was a strange feeling, knowing he knew the events of one night four months ago that she had no memory of.

‘You were waiting,’ he said, she turned to look at him, ‘in that little black number of yours,’ he told her with a smile. ‘I showed up in your room, no shoes and no shirt, and you were sitting on the edge of your bed waiting for me.’

‘John,’ she whispered reminding him to keep his voice low.

‘You took the top off and kissed me, pulling me close so I could feel your breasts against my chest.’

She blushed and looked away; she’d never been so forward with anyone in her life. But she did have to admit that with John it seemed easier to be so outright crude, maybe because he was.

‘When we pulled apart,’ he continued, ‘I asked if you knew why I was there.’

‘I said yes,’ she admitted before she realised she’d opened her mouth. The memory of standing in his strong arms just inside her room was washing quickly over her. ‘I said I wanted it, wanted to carry your child.’

She watched him nod, a small smile on his lips and she knew. As he told the story, she would remember it, or at least pieces of it, because she couldn’t remember waiting for him, couldn’t remember removing her black vest top.

‘”I want to carry your child within me,” you said,’ he reminded her of the exact words she had spoken that night, ‘and you turned in my arms, taking my hands and placing them both against your stomach.’

‘You didn’t keep them there long,’ she said with a smirk and raised eyebrow. She leaned in close to him and whispered her next line in his ear. ‘You seemed to prefer my breasts in your hands.’

‘Oh come on, you’re in a public place.’

Elizabeth sat up at the normal sarcastic tone of Rodney McKay and turned to look at him. He stood inside the curtain with his hand barely covering his eyes.

‘The curtain was closed Rodney,’ she told him, turning back to John and leaning in for a quick kiss before she hopped off the bed and moved over to him. ‘What couldn’t wait until I was back in my office?’

‘I got the log, wanted to know if you wanted a copy.’

‘I would like one, yes. But that could have waited Rodney.’

‘Yeah,’ he said shifting uncomfortably. ‘What... erm, what happened to...’ he asked dropping his voice to a slight whisper.

‘He passed out,’ Elizabeth said matter-of-factly.

‘He fainted?’

‘Passed out,’ John called.

‘Why?’ Rodney asked, shifting again giving Elizabeth the idea that he knew the answer to the question.

‘No clue, he...’

‘I turned it on.’

She stopped, stunned, she couldn’t have heard that right. She knew he had a habit of talking too fast, but she was sure he’d said he turned it on.

‘You,’ she said not completely sure she wanted to repeat what he had just said; ‘you turned the device on, again?’ 

She watched him swallow and avoid her eyes; he shifted again turning slightly so she couldn’t see the whole of his face. He knew he would be in trouble for this, she could see it on his face, the understanding that he’d have to stand through another shouting at the very least.

‘It was on for no more than a minute and a half, long enough for me to download the log.’

‘I told you,’ she said, her voice low and shaking with anger and strained not to raise her voice, ‘that you could have the log if,’ she stretched the word “if” for as long as possible, ‘if, you didn’t turn it on again.’

‘I thought the log would be important, at the very least to you.’

‘And John’s life and health wouldn’t be?’ She shook her head, wondering what she could possibly do with a member of her team that couldn’t follow procedure or her direct order. ‘I want your computer.’

‘What?’

‘Give me your computer,’ she instructed punching each word out. When he finally handed it over she turned and placed it on the foot of John’s bed then turned back to Rodney. ‘I want you to go and wait in my office, Rodney, don’t stop to talk with anyone on your way and don’t leave until I say so; is that clear.’

Rodney nodded and left the infirmary. She watched him go, wondering just how she could possibly teach him that experiments that she didn’t approve of were unapproved of for a reason.

‘Elizabeth,’ she turned to look at John and found him sitting up, she couldn’t bring herself to smile at him; she simply picked up the tablet PC and left the area.

She found Carson before leaving the infirmary and ordered him to give John a full check up, including his DNA and Gene structure. Still extremely annoyed with Rodney for the second time today, she moved easily through the city, people seemed to pick up on her mood and avoided stopping to talk for long.

She met with Ronon on her way past the gym, strolling around to make Rodney wait longer, and asked him to follow her as she headed for her office. 

‘Well it’s about time,’ Rodney said defiantly and Elizabeth just raised her eyebrow at him, giving him a look that would be taken as nothing more than “shut up”.

He seemed to cower under her stare and sat quickly down in the chair opposite her. She stole a glance at Ronon, now standing in the corner of the room leaning against the glass window before shutting the door to her office.

She watched him, letting silence fall in the office and was well aware of everyone outside in the control room waiting, listening and trying not to watch. But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an audience.

‘You’re not gonna shout? Tell me how stupid I was? Remind me that I put Sheppard’s life in danger?’

She bit her bottom lip and sat back in her chair, watching him squirm a little more seemed to do more damage than shouting at him, and hopefully would be more effective.

‘Look, I know it was stupid to turn it on just to get the log... but I thought that knowing why you’re pregnant would be worth something.’

‘I know why I’m pregnant, Rodney,’ she said sitting forward and resting her arms on the desk. ‘I’m pregnant because you didn’t listen the first time I told you not to switch that device on. The fact that you ignored me twice on the same thing tells me you need to learn that you are not the top of the command chain here.’

‘I know I’m not the top, you’re over me.’

She raised an eyebrow and waited for him to add that John was also over him, but it didn’t come. She sat back again and ran her hand down over her stomach idly straightening her t-shirt over the raise of her belly.

‘From this moment on,’ she said calmly resting her hands in her lap, her fingers resting on her lower stomach, ‘you’ll report directly to Ronon.’

‘You’re kidding me, the caveman?’

‘You will do nothing without his permission, you will work under his supervision, you won’t use the Atlantis or Earth computers without his permission, you don’t even stop for a toilet break without his say so.’

‘Elizabeth, come on.’

‘You obviously can’t follow my orders Rodney, so I’ll just have to find out if you’ll follow anyone else’s.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Rodney started, ‘you want me to ask him if I can pee?’

‘Twice,’ she said finally raising her voice and making him jump, ‘you’ve switched that same device on without permission, Rodney, twice. The first time, you couldn’t even bring yourself to tell me you’d done it. I can’t take you seriously anymore,’ she said dropping back to her calm tone and watching him hang his head. ‘I need to know that I can trust you Rodney, and the only way I’m going to find that out, is if you start following orders.’

‘But him?’ He asked pointing to Ronon still standing quietly in the corner.

‘Ronon’s been here for almost two years, Rodney, in that time, he’s followed my orders without question. In that time,’ she said punching out the word “in”, ‘you’ve become more and more unpredictable.’

Silence fell again and she waited for the inevitable question, she knew it was brewing in his mind, probably amongst several complaints about this idea and a few quips about being told to report to Ronon.

‘For how long?’ he asked eventually, his voice quiet and almost timid.

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she said honestly, ‘until further notice,’ she added.

Rodney nodded; then nodded again before getting to his feet and leaving the office.

‘You serious?’ Ronon asked pushing off from the wall.

‘I don’t see any other way to make him listen to me.’

Ronon smiled at her and followed the scientist out of the room. Elizabeth sat for a moment, watching the control crew as they eyed the pair passing through and then leaned forward to place her head in her hands and heaved a sigh.

~~**~~

John heaved himself off the floor and moved swiftly to the door, his heart was racing again but not in a bad way. He felt far more energised than he probably should have considering he just spent the day in the infirmary.

He opened the door and stuck his head out, checking both ways down the corridor before pulling back in to close the door. Elizabeth would be along any minute now. He couldn’t tell why he knew this, he just did; this was about the normal time she gave up for the day.

He had to guess that she would head for the infirmary first, thinking he was still there. John knew Carson would give her an update on the exam she’d ordered for him which had led to his release.

He moved back to the space in the room and dropped to the ground and into push-up position.

‘One,’ he counted off as he pushed up from the floor. ‘Two,’ he struggled slightly considering this was really 102 instead of just two. ‘Three.’

‘What on Earth do you think you’re doing,’ he didn’t get the chance to reply before Elizabeth’s hands were on his arm and she pulled him up. ‘You’ve just got out of the infirmary; do you want to go back?’

‘No. And I was just burning some energy.’

‘And giving me a heart attack, Carson said you should be resting.’

‘I was...’

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, couldn’t look into her eyes and say that he was relaxing the best way he knew how.

‘You should be lying down,’ she said with concern.

‘This from the pregnant woman whose been on her feet all day,’ he scoffed. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ he said waiting for her raised eyebrow. ‘I’ll lie down, if you lay with me.’

‘You’re a big baby sometimes, you know that?’

‘Then our kids will have company,’ he said letting her guide him to the bed.

He flopped down on the bed, keeping to one side and stretched one arm out across the gap he’d created. His eyes followed her as she circled the bed and got comfortable beside him, resting on her side, one hand up to support her head, the other fiddling with his dog tags that had slipped out from his shirt as he exercised.

Silence fell between them and John let his eyes slide shut as he drank in the new feel of her body against his. It was blissful, her hand on his chest, her knee resting on his thigh and the raise of her blooming body against his side. 

He quirked his eyebrow and started to contemplate when he’d become so romantic.

‘You were telling me about your memory,’ she said after a while more. ‘If I remember correctly,’ she said shifting to get more comfortable, ‘I had turned around in your arms and placed your hands on my stomach; then you’d moved them up to my breasts.’

‘Bare breasts,’ he said not opening his eyes, but grinning at the thought.

‘Bare breasts,’ she repeated.

‘You were only wearing the black shorts,’ he added.

‘Only in my black shorts,’ she said and he knew by the tone of her voice that she was smirking at him.

‘Skin-tight shorts.’

She gave a low laugh and he popped one eye open to look at her quickly before he closed it again.

‘Don’t suppose you have those with you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘just the thong I’m wearing.’

‘Thong!’ John said snapping his head up to look at her and found her trying to hide a cheeky smile from him.

‘If you’re not wearing a thong, I’ll go back to doing push-ups.’

‘You’ll have to either tell me, or show me that memory in order to find out,’ she said coyly.

John contemplated this choice for a moment, how would she prove she was wearing one if he only told her the memory?

‘Alright then,’ he said pulling up from the bed and away from her, he circled the bed and took hold of her hand. He helped her to her feet and without releasing her hand he left his room and headed down the corridor.

‘John,’ she asked smiling at some new marine, whose name she hadn’t yet learned, ‘where are we going?’

‘Your room,’ he said simply as he stepped through a door and started up the stairs.

Inside her room, John closed the door and turned her to face him, before he crouched down and started to undo her shoes. He knew by now she must be catching on as to what he was doing.

‘This,’ he said as he pulled her left boot and sock off, ‘is where we were. You gave me the option to show, so that’s what I’m doing,’ he pulled her right boot and sock off and stood up. ‘There’s no better place to re-enact, than the place it happened in.’

He shoved her boots to the side with his bare foot and seized the zipper of her jacket and dragged it quickly down. It was off and on the chair to the right before she could protest and he started to ease her t-shirt up.

‘This is very un-romantic you know,’ she said with an air of jest. John just laughed at the comment and continued to pull her shirt off before setting to work on her pants. 

Boots, socks, jacket, t-shirt, pants and bra. He ticked the list off in his mind leaving Elizabeth in nothing but her panties and couldn’t resist just letting his eyes drift down her body.

He reached out and let his fingers ghost down from her breast bone to the top of her underwear before lifting his eyes to look at her. He stepped forward and kissed her gently, his arms going around to rest of the small of her back before he slowly and teasingly started to move them down.

‘Wow,’ he said feeling his fingers drift off a small strap of panty and back onto skin, ‘you really are wearing a thong,’ he said leaning over to look.

‘Yes I am,’ she said taking hold of his shirt and giving it a tug. ‘You said you were bare foot and bare-chested, so off with this,’ she told him pulling it up as he moved back.

With his top gone, Elizabeth turned in his arms and he marvelled at the back of her underwear for a moment. Until of course, she took hold of his hands and placed them on her belly.

‘I like this position,’ he said looking over her shoulder and down over her chest.

‘I don’t remember that night John,’ she said drawing his attention, ‘you’re supposed to be reminding me.’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’d asked if you knew why I was here, you said you knew... that you wanted to feel my baby growing in you and then put us in this position.’

‘Right,’ she said listening to him shorten that part of the description as they’d already been over it.

‘I pulled my hands up,’ he said leaving her swollen stomach and moving up to her swollen breasts and cupping them tenderly in his hands. ‘I told you I loved you, that I wanted nothing more than to be in your life in any way I possibly could.’

He paused to tease his thumbs over her nipples and kiss tenderly at her neck, he had noticed as he looked down a small bruise that looked oddly like teeth marks. His marks from the previous night, he kissed at it before continuing his story.

‘You leaned back,’ he said, ‘resting your head on my shoulder so I could kiss at your neck. I started to walk forward,’ he added moving forward towards the bed as he had done. ‘I wanted you to lie down, so I could... explore you.’

Elizabeth stopped him, turning before they reached the bed and kissed at his neck. 

‘I know why it took an hour,’ she said meeting his gaze, ‘I explored you too.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ he said with a smirk, ‘I have very encouraging memories of you exploring a certain area of me.’

She chuckled, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head against his shoulder and giving a deep sigh of contentment.

‘I don’t need the re-enactment,’ she said and John started to run small circles up her back, ‘I just want to be with you tonight.’

~~**~~

‘I hate this,’ Elizabeth said under her breath as she watched Teyla approach. ‘I really hate this,’ she amended as the woman stopped in front of her with a smile on her face.

‘I have checked all three rooms are ready,’ she reported, ‘there is fresh fruit and flowers from the mainland in each.’

‘Thank you,’ Elizabeth said resting her hand once again on her belly. She had to admit, she liked the touch, made everything seem so much more real.

Around her, people were stepping into the gate room; she had been standing in the middle of it for the last half an hour watching the slow crowd gather to greet their guests. Guests she would love nothing more than to shoot right now.

The IOA representatives from England and France were getting ready to step through the gate back in the Milky Way galaxy, probably a lot more calmly than she is.

‘Security cameras are locked to your command codes only,’ Rodney said stopping just behind Elizabeth with Ronon right behind him. ‘Although it took me twice as long to do than normal,’ he added turning to glare at his shadow.

‘Well next time you’ll know not to ignore my orders.’

‘Elizabeth, it’s been two weeks...’

‘Nope,’ she said shortly. ‘When our guests have gone,’ she paused to give him false hope, ‘then I’ll reconsider, reconsidering.’

Rodney gave her an annoyed look and stomped off to join the crowd. Before Ronon could follow she caught his arm.

‘Back off, just a little while our guests are here,’ she said very aware that she had instituted a very unusual form of punishment. Ronon nodded and moved off to join the group.

She checked her watch, three minutes and counting. She didn’t really know what to expect, Jack had told her that the two were quite reasonable and both had asked a lot of questions about her and the things she dealt with.

The only thing keeping her sane at the moment, though, was the thought that Jack was coming with them.

She turned and took in the small crowd gathered at the bottom of the stairs, John and Carson were missing from the ranks, but everyone else had arrived on time. Up in the control room, the control staff where milling about waiting for the gate to activate.

She tugged once again at her uniform shirt, making a show of covering the top of her uniform grey pants for a moment before she decided she hated that her stomach showed so much and pulled the material away from her body.

‘Stop that,’ John said stepping up behind her and making her jump slightly, ‘everyone knows your pregnant, you can’t hide it anymore.’

‘Doesn’t stop me trying,’ she said in a low voice that only he could hear.

‘You need to relax,’ he said stepping forward and placing his hands on her hips, he didn’t seem to care that there was a group of people watching him. ‘They’re only here for a few days and no one’s gonna let them replace you,’ he leaned in close almost as if he wanted to kiss her.

Someone behind her cleared their throat and she moved shyly away from him. She’d been tempted just then to throw it all away just for a sweet kiss.

‘Are we going to need to start giving you two a chaperone?’ Teyla said with a wicked grin. Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something cocky about learning too many Earth words but was cut off as the gate began to dial.

‘I’m really starting to hate punctuality,’ she muttered instead

‘Don’t let McKay hear you say that.’

She stepped forward with him and took her place between him and Teyla. She heaved a heavy sigh and plastered her political smile on before turning slightly towards John.

‘John,’ she said pulling her shirt straight again, ‘stop teaching our allies Earth words.’

John simply smirked at her, but she could hear Teyla laughing quietly on her other side. It did wonders for her, she relaxed somewhat and found her smile became more natural despite the situation.

Several airmen were the first to step through the gate, they flagged the room on either side as the last man through stepped up in front of John saluted and gave him a slip of paper before taking his place.

‘New SGC recruits for us to play with,’ he told her. ‘After the delegates from the IOA leave that is.’

As he finished speaking, the party stepped through the gate, General O’Neill was slightly ahead of the short woman and large man who appeared.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said bowing just slightly to her. She stepped forward to greet the party and couldn’t stop herself from taking one last tug at her t-shirt. ‘You’re looking healthy.’

‘Thank you,’ she said stoically.

‘Allow me to introduce Ambassador Heather Miles from England,’ he paused as Elizabeth moved to greet the short woman who gave her a friendly smile, ‘and Ambassador Antoine Hurst.’

Another friendly smile greeted her as she shook his hand, but it did nothing to sway the dreaded feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘This is amazing,’ Ambassador Hurst stated giving an eager look around the room. ‘I can see why you would be reluctant to leave it.’

Elizabeth didn’t quite know how to respond to that. The word “reluctant” was far from adequate to describe what Elizabeth felt.

‘This is just a fraction of the city’s beauty,’ Elizabeth said wishing they would just get this over with already.

‘Then maybe we should start with a tour?’ John said and Elizabeth had to glare at him for this stupid suggestion. Was he purposely trying to get on her nerves or was this just his nature?

‘No,’ she said suddenly and cursed herself for sounding so harassed. ‘We will get to that later,’ she said not managing to hide the annoyance in her voice. Giving up on speaking, Elizabeth motioned them towards the stairs. 

She could get a few minutes to compose herself while they made their way through the crowd and up the stairs.

‘What’s with you?’ Jack asked quietly stepping up close to her with John close beside him. ‘You’re meant to be kissing butt, not kicking it.’

‘I don’t want to sit around here while they go on a tour of my city,’ she snapped managing to keep her voice low and putting emphasis on the word “my”. ‘I want this over with now, so I can get back to work.’

‘Elizabeth...’

‘If I have to spend one more day fighting with people who want to take my job away from me, then I might just snap.’

She turned and moved through the crowd to the ambassadors to guide them to the conference room. As they started up the stairs she turned back to see John and Jack watching her with slightly stunned looks on their faces.

‘Hormones!’ Jack said and shrugged.

‘Is she gonna be like that the whole time?’ John asked giving Elizabeth a smile.

‘Nope,’ Jack said moving towards the stairs as the group moved off. ‘It’ll get worse,’ he turned and looked at John with a smirk on his face. ‘Good luck with that,’ he said giving him a pat on the shoulder and moving off.

‘Crap,’ John muttered.


	9. Chapter 9

She watched as they set out their things, files and miscellaneous paperwork being pulled from their briefcases and set on the conference table in front of them. It made her more nervous seeing all the material they had gathered on her, but she kept her cool as she watched them.

The Ambassadors were sat opposite her, John was sat to her right and Jack had taken a seat between the two parties and off to one side.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and adjusted her position while she waited, she could have made small talk, could even have started talking to John about his shift rotation idea. But her nerves had the better of her and she was slowly becoming more and more antsy having to wait.

‘Right then,’ Ambassador Hurst started pulling a pile of folders towards him. ‘This should be short and easy and hopefully we won’t be in the way for more than a day. Although I would like that tour, but I guess we can take that while you pack your things.’

‘What?’ John spat his head snapping up to give him a shocked look.

‘You’re here to determine if Elizabeth should stay or not,’ Jack said, ‘not automatically assume she isn’t.’

‘Let me see,’ Hurst said, ‘other than the fact that she got pregnant with her second in command...’

‘Not her fault,’ John said, ‘or mine for that matter.’

‘Her senior staff routinely disobeys her orders. It’s clear to me, that no one here respects her choices or orders,’ he held up his hand as John opened his mouth to protest. ‘You, Colonel Sheppard, on several occasions have done what you want, instead of what Doctor Weir has ordered you. For example, in your first year here, you broke quarantine procedure to stop someone from spreading a virus.’

‘He was heading for one of the most populated areas of the city.’

‘You obviously felt she couldn’t handle the situation,’ Hurst countered, ‘you supported Doctor McKay with the Trinity project despite it going horribly wrong. It is clear to us that you have more faith in Doctor McKay than you do in Doctor Weir.’

Elizabeth shrunk back against the chair; they had made up their minds, and by the sounds of it, had the details to back it up. She wanted to cry, there was no way to bring them around and she knew it.

‘Doctor Benjamin Kavanaugh submitted several incompetence reports on how you let your emotional attachment interfere with your command choices, in particular when choices were made that would directly affect Colonel Sheppard. Colonel Caldwell has also made reference to some of these situations in his reports.’

Maybe she should have let them go on the tour first. Or maybe she should just get up and go pack her things; she’d be fighting a losing battle with this even if she could think of something to say that would explain every action and choice she’d made over the last two years.

‘Doctor McKay, as another of your command staff also takes to doing his own thing. He put on a personal shield without knowing what it did or how to deactivate it and he didn’t bother to ask your permission to test it. He took a ZPM from a planet populated by children and put their lives in danger, again he didn’t ask for authorisation to remove the device and then managed to break it.’

Elizabeth picked up her glass of water in attempt to stave off the growing embarrassment at her team and fear that it was all over.

‘With your permission, he endangered a gaseous population by harnessing them in order to attempt communication with Earth. During the Trinity project, he lost a member of his team as well as destroying any hope of using the technology along with half a solar system.’

She felt John’s spirits drop at her side, he was seeing this as a losing battle as well and it didn’t make things any easier for her, this could go on forever if he was going to list every member who had taken it upon themselves to do something.

‘He endangered his team and the Daedalus onboard the Aurora. He put Colonel Sheppard in a time displacement field without knowing what was on the other side. Not to mention his part in the current situation you have found yourself in.’

‘Most of the things you’ve listed are Doctor McKay’s mistakes, not Elizabeth’s and if he has done so much wrong, why aren’t we talking to him about his job instead?’

She could have leaned over and kissed Jack for the comment.

‘Doctor McKay’s contribution to this team far outweighs Doctor Weir’s.’

‘I disagree,’ Jack said his voice rising, ‘Elizabeth has managed to keep both military and civilian teams in an enclosed space without having war between them. Her off world teams work together as a mix of these parts. AND,’ he said raising his voice over the Ambassadors who was now listing her personal faults at the top of his voice, ‘she has managed to broker deals with some of the hardest allies in this galaxy.’

‘Yes, her allies, including a Wraith group that managed to not only find the way to Earth but managed to get all our research on the retrovirus.’

‘You can pull Elizabeth up on all HER mistakes, but you can’t hold her for every mistake every team member has made,’ Jack continued, ‘they are here to learn and you can’t do that if you take every mistake and throw it in her face.’

‘Quite frankly, I have my reservations about a pregnant woman performing in the capacity of expedition leader,’ Hurst spat at him.

‘I take offence to that,’ Miles spoke out for the first time, ‘women, pregnant or not, can do anything just as well as men; that is also not the issue of this meeting.’ 

‘Excuse me,’ Elizabeth interrupted and activated her radio; ‘go ahead,’ she said and listened as Chuck told her Lorne’s team was ready to leave. ‘I’ll be right there.’

She stood up and looked around the table before taking a deep breath and starting her explanation.

‘If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I have team leaving for a new world.’

‘I don’t think you should be leaving, do you?’

She couldn’t believe him, for the time that she was still here, even if that was becoming shorter and shorter, she would still run this city.

‘Whilst I’m still here, sir,’ she said attempting to keep the bitterness from her voice, ‘I will continue to do my job and I see all my teams off when they go to a new planet.’

She turned and pushed open one of the panels and moved out of sight from the room. She took a breath of relief for the short intermission.

~~**~~

‘Major,’ Evan turned and watched as she came down the stairs to see him off.

‘I told them not to interrupt you,’ he offered, ‘it didn’t sound like it was going too well.’

Elizabeth laughed; she couldn’t do anything else, other than cry and he could see that on her face.

‘It’s not but I’ve never failed to see a team off, I don’t intend to start now.’

He watched her motion for them to start dialling. He wished he could stay for this; he’d love to give these people a piece of his mind, or a shot in the head if it would help them leave her alone. He’d been here for about two years and from what he’d seen, she’d done more than an adequate job considering the circumstances.

‘Good luck Major,’ she started, ‘try and come back in one piece, each,’ he chuckled at the idea of all four of his team in one body. She leaned in close before adding ‘and don’t bring back any surprises.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said with a grin and she turned to walk back up the stairs. ‘Doctor Weir,’ he waited for her to turn back to him, ‘we hope you’re still here to welcome us back, it would be a mistake for them to replace you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly and he could see the pride in her face. He turned and moved to the gate where his team had been standing watching him, they had agreed earlier if they got the chance to say something he’d speak for all of them.

~~**~~

She followed them through the city listening as Teyla and John made friendly conversation with their guests. She could tell by John’s body language that he didn’t want to do the tour or talk to them at all, but he would do anything she asked him to do simply to prove them wrong.

Jack walked with her, following the group through the city. Neither of them wanted to sit and wait for them to get back and both of them could use this time to catch up on things, work in her case and friends in his.

She couldn’t think of anything to say, her life was pretty much over. They had been arguing in the conference room for hours. It was now past dinner time and she had to guess that most people had gone into their personal routines or were milling around in the mess hall after dinner.

Knowing that after this tour they’d stop for dinner and then retire for the night didn’t help Elizabeth feel any better. Despite the fact that Hurst had given up on the pretence of her packing her bags while they looked around, she couldn’t think of a single way out of this mess.

She didn’t care how it would look; she was going to spend the night with John, probably for the very last time. It was a depressing thought.

They rounded the corner and took the last stretch towards the mess hall. It wasn’t until a hush fell from inside the room that Elizabeth knew something was going on.

The room was filled with people, all standing together waiting for them; she couldn’t believe the sheer volume of people in the room. She caught a shift from Ambassador Hurst as he looked around before rounding on her.

‘Do you think this will convince us you belong here?’

She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t know anything about it when Ronon stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘She had nothing to do with this,’ he said, ‘we set this up.’

‘Further proof that no one listens to you,’ Hurst snapped.

‘Hey,’ Ronon shot.

‘It’s okay Ronon,’ Elizabeth tried.

‘No, it’s not,’ he said and a murmur of agreement spread around the room. ‘I’m not even from your planet and I treat you with more respect. I’m not a member of this expedition,’ he said turning on the Ambassador, ‘but I trust these people with my life, especially Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard.’

‘As do I,’ Teyla added stepping up beside him. Elizabeth dropped her head, the sentiment was beautiful, but it wasn’t going to help at all.

‘Most of this team has been here for over two years, all following Doctor Weir’s orders. How many complaints have you had that didn’t come from someone no longer here?’

‘None,’ Jack put in.

‘Every person in this city believes that it would be the biggest mistake to replace her just because she’s pregnant,’ Ronon continued. ‘It’s easier for a new person to join the expedition and fit in, but if you replace the leader, not only do you have eighty people who hate it and have to get to know one person, but you have one person who has to get to know and learn the habits of them.’

‘Elizabeth knows how to get the best from us,’ Radek added moving to the front of crowd, ‘she knows who to turn to for certain jobs and she knows she can trust us to get it done in any time frame she sets.’

Elizabeth watched the nods from the group and turned in time to see Ambassador Hurst shake his head and walk away from the group and towards the food table. Ambassador Miles took a look around the group and smiled at Elizabeth before she followed him.

‘Thank you,’ Elizabeth said quietly to those closest to her and motioned for them to leave. She was thankful for the supporting hand on her back as she and John moved to follow them.

~~**~~

Elizabeth was sat in the dark when John stepped in, he couldn’t see her face, just the outline of her body sitting in the corner where he’d seen her sit weeks ago when this whole thing started.

‘Don’t know any miracle workers do you?’

The tone in her voice could have broken his heart in an instant. He could hear the pain and fear in her voice and he hated it. He moved over and sat down beside her before realising she was sitting with her knees drawn up and her feet on the bench.

‘I do,’ he said quietly, ‘but none of my miracle workers work on idiots.’

Elizabeth broke into a sniggered laugh, but it wasn’t long before it turned into a sob. He didn’t know what to do, there was no way out of this; Hurst had his mind set on taking Elizabeth back tomorrow. He was going to lose her and his baby all because McKay couldn’t follow an order.

He moved to her side as he had done weeks ago and slipped his arms around her so he could lift her from the bench before moving over to the bed. He laid her carefully on the bed and watched as she turned her back to him.

He pulled off his boots and clothes and climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up over them before carefully wrapping his arms around her body and pulling her back against his front.

‘We’ll figure something out, Elizabeth,’ he promised as he reached up and wiped the tears from her cheek. ‘I won’t lose you now, not to them.’

He moved his hand back down to her stomach and felt her hand resting there; he interlocked his fingers with hers and kissed at her neck. He loved the feeling of laying here with her. He could forget everything, the IOA freaks, the problems of the city and the possibility of losing the woman he loved and their baby.

He could feel her body shuddering against him, could feel her wet tears against his the arm he had tucked under her head as if it were her pillow. He had a feeling she was going to cry herself to sleep, but he wouldn’t sleep at all, come tomorrow he was going to have a way out of this mess. Or he was going back home with her.

~~**~~

Here they were again, sitting in the same places as yesterday in the same conference room that Elizabeth was slowly starting to hate. She would hate to think it would be the last time she saw it, despite how she felt about some things in this city it would be hard to leave any of it.

But that was quickly becoming the last thing from her mind, especially since “Hearse” had started talking again and was once again focused on killing her career. With every French accented syllable out of his mouth she wanted to strangle him just a little more.

She fixed her eyes on the wall behind him and started wondering if she could seriously get away with murdering him if she had to leave the city. Her city!

Recapping yesterday’s horror was the last thing she wanted right now and instead of listening to his ranting about her abilities she started thinking of ways to kill him. The most fun of which was tying him to the shielded side of the brig bars and watching him suffer painfully.

She wanted this over, if they were going to end her career and potentially her life, she wished they’d just get to it instead of constantly stating all the times she’d messed up or been ignored by her staff.

‘Right, we’ll have Doctor McKay in now,’

She had to raise an eyebrow; she must have missed the part of this speech that mentioned Rodney being invited in. Not to mention she wanted to know if he had actually said he’d got him to wait outside.

Rodney looked nervous for the first time in his life and it occurred to her that he was worrying that he would be the deciding force between her staying or going. If only she could just tell him that no matter what he did or said, nothing would save her now.

Despite the fact that she was angry at Hurst, she couldn’t help slipping back into the depressing feelings that today was the end of everything.

‘Doctor McKay,’ Hurst started and Elizabeth slipped her eyes from the wall to his face for a second to imagine him as a Wraith. 

He started talking again, once again listing off all the times Rodney had messed up or ignored Elizabeth. She vanished into her thoughts, this time not about how to kill him, but instead how she would survive on Earth without John.

She didn’t want to rely on her mother, but she had no idea how to cope with a baby on her own. Even here before they found out it was his, she had always counted on there being someone to help her. Maybe Teyla or even Kate and with that, she’d had the image of Chuck in the control room looking after a newborn while she wrote her reports.

She caught the end of his list stopping, as predicted, on the resent experiment that he’d ran three times, the first time of which she had ended up pregnant from.

‘Doctor McKay, do you have anything to add that might explain your apparent disregard for Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard's orders?’ Jack put in before Hurst could say anything else.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Rodney fidgeting; his stance had shifted as he listened to the list of mistakes. He was no longer nervous, he looked ready to scream. His face was red and puffy and she wondered if he’d be able to keep a civil tongue for this.

She turned to John catching his eye before giving Jack a pleading look mentally begging him to save at least one of them from something humiliating. He shook his head in return though and gave her a look that told her he knew what he was doing. She seriously hoped he did.

‘Doctor McKay,’ Hurst nudged oblivious to their exchange.

‘You know, I don’t honestly think I’m in here to answer to you for my mistakes, you’re looking for me to give you a reason why I disobeyed them. Well I did, yes on several situations I’ve gone over the top with my own ego and I’ve ignored them. But that’s who I am and it’s not just Elizabeth that has to deal with it. I could quote off the top of my head the number of times I’ve ignored superiors.’

Elizabeth had been watching him, the throbbing in her temple picking up as Rodney’s voice climbed. She closed her eyes briefly and turned back to Jack who once again shook his head.

‘I respect Elizabeth beyond belief, she’s amazing, she could deal with any situation you put her in and she’d do it without hesitating. With all the choices she’s had to make over the last few years, I wouldn’t like to be in her shoes. The only reason you can actually sit here and bitch at her for choices gone wrong is because you’ve never been here when it gets bad.’

She dropped her head down, wishing to be anywhere else but right where she was now. She’d even be happy back on Earth.

‘You judge only by what you see on paper and on paper I look brilliant, actually I look good in person too.’

‘Rodney,’ Elizabeth said stopping him from saying something egotistical.

‘I crumble in bad situations, I panic and the only way for either of them to get work out of me in those cases is to let me go over the top. It works and yes admittedly I let it go too far, and I start doing my own thing. But I always and I mean always make it up later.’

‘We've had the... pleasure of working together in the past, Doctor McKay,’ Jack interjected, slowly raising his eyebrow. A look Elizabeth knew only too well was given when leading someone down a path of usefulness, ‘and I must admit that I was surprised when I read the reports of your injury and the circumstances behind it when the Genii infiltrated this base. Care to elaborate?’

‘I’m not a fighter, the complete opposite actually, if there’s fighting to be done, I’d rather hide,’ Rodney started, his crazed tone dropping slightly and Elizabeth couldn’t help but raise a brow of her own as she realised Rodney had picked up on Jack’s thinking. ‘But when Kolya pulled a gun on her, there was nothing else to do. I couldn’t just stand to the side and watch him kill the best person to set foot in this city in over ten thousand years.’

‘You were willing to let this Kolya kill you instead of her?’ Hurst asked.

‘Of course I was,’ he spat, ‘no one in their right mind would let harm come to her, she set this team up and without it this place would have been destroyed several times over by now. Colonel Sheppard was the only person who could save us, and there was no way I was letting Kolya kill her before he had the chance to shoot the guy.’

Across from her, Hurst was looking just as annoyed as he had in the beginning, but at his side, Ambassador Miles was watching Rodney intently.

‘I’ll admit,’ Rodney continued, ‘it was stupid to want to test a device we knew nothing about, and I’ll be the first to say it was the absolute biggest mistake of anyone’s career to switch it on in the middle of the night when everyone was in bed. But as every person in this city knows I have a head bigger than the room.’

‘Planet,’ John whispered to her.

Hurst opened his mouth and Elizabeth was sure nothing good could come out of it. But before he had the chance to say anything the city alarms started and Chuck’s voice floated over the intercom.

‘Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard to the control room.’

Elizabeth was up first, she didn’t bother to excuse herself as she pushed the door open and left the room to take the stairs over to the control room. She made note of the open wormhole as she passed the top of the stairs.

‘Report,’ she demanded feeling John step beside her and catching Rodney out the corner of her eye as took his place at one of the computers.

‘Major Lorne’s team are under attack, the Wraith are culling Bitha. They want to know if they can bring back refugees.’

‘Give them permission,’ she ordered before turning to John. ‘I want extra soldiers in that room, I don’t want to assume the Wraith won’t try to stop them,’ she turned back to Chuck.’ Lower the shield.’

‘Are you insane?’ Hurst spat coming up close to her.

‘I will not leave my men out there to be captured by the Wraith,’ she said side stepping him to move over to Rodney. Before she could reach him, the gate shut down and she turned sharply to look out over the gate room. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I think it was disconnected from their end,’ Rodney told her tapping frantically at the keyboard.

She moved to the gap in the protective glass that surrounded the control area and stepped through, the men below who had gathered quickly at the sound of the alarms were relaxing.

‘Keep your posts,’ she called out and caught sight of Ambassador Miles watching from behind the glass as they stepped back into place and readied their weapons.

She watched for a minute more, hoping Lorne wouldn’t lose the chance to dial in again. As she watched John, Teyla and Ronon moved into the room, both Teyla and Ronon moving to take up places at the bottom of the stairs while John took the steps two at a time.

Before he reached the top, the gate dialled in. She turned back quickly, moving back into the safety of the room and keeping an eye on the gate. As soon as it was open she turned to look between Rodney and Chuck.

‘We have Lorne’s IDC,’ Rodney said clearly.

‘They’re coming in hot,’ Chuck said listening to the communication that came in.

‘Heads up,’ Elizabeth called down and turned to see John standing at the top of the stairs almost as if he was guarding their guests. ‘Let them in,’ she said and moved over towards them as Hurst once again voiced his displeasure with the idea.

‘Teyla,’ she called stepping around the glass covering, ‘incoming refugees.’

Teyla nodded, they had agreed last time they brought refugees back like this that there would be someone in charge of getting them out of the room. Elizabeth turned back to the room to find Ambassador Hurst in her face.

‘You’re opening the gate to let the Wraith in?’

‘I’m opening the gate to let Major Lorne’s team back in, all those people down there,’ she indicated the group of armed soldiers in the room below, ‘are there to make sure that any Wraith stepping through the gate, don’t live long enough to hurt anymore. Now if you don’t mind getting out of my way.’

‘You are irresponsible and...’

A short cry carried over the room, Elizabeth vaguely heard Teyla calling to a group of people before the sound of a stunner blast hitting the metal wall rang out.

‘If I keep that gate shielded, I lose a team, and I refuse to let anyone die unnecessarily.’

‘And letting the Wraith in will stop that?’

‘As I’ve just said, they won’t live long enough. Move!’

She reached out and shoved him back into the control room taking the steps back with him. She was barely past where he’d been standing when another stunner blast shot past her head and shattered the glass behind her.

‘And to think, a pregnant woman just saved your uppity butt,’ she said glaring at him before moving off to get a report. She’d barely reached Chuck’s side before people below began to shout, one of Lorne’s team had come back through the gate shouting a warning of a wave of Wraith heading towards the gate.

One step forward and she got a front seat view as another member of the team flew through the gate propelled by a Wraith. Fire rang out from the SO’s and Elizabeth instinctively reached up for the radio.

‘Medical team to the gate room,’ she ordered and moved to the glass to try and get a view of the team member who was now lying on the ground. Teyla and one of the SO’s were standing nearby protecting him as several more villagers stepped through. ‘Major, how many more,’ she said switching frequency.

Silence followed as a few more villagers stepped through and were ushered to the side before the final two members of the Lorne’s team stepped through.

‘Shield,’ Lorne shouted and turned nodding to Chuck before catching sight of several Wraith moving into the gate room.

The shield went up leaving the room in chaos with the Wraith attempting to get close to anyone. Elizabeth waited, watching as anyone with a gun below opened fire on the creatures. Once it was clear, she moved off and made her way down the stairs behind John.

The medical team were making their way into the room and tending to those who’d been stunned and the team member who had been fed on.

‘Report,’ she said approaching Lorne.

‘It started this morning, took us six hours to dial out quickly enough before they blocked us. We got as many people as we could somewhere safe while we waited.’

She couldn’t help but notice that he carefully tried to stretch his arm as he spoke. He had been injured in the attack and she raised an eyebrow for an explanation.

‘I think I pulled it out of its socket trying to pull one of the kids out of a Wraith’s clutches.’

‘Get checked out Major. Good job,’ she said moved off.


	10. Chapter 10

John found it amusing to see Hurst stumbling around the dismay of what had just happened. He watched the man move from one dead Wraith to another and then turn and look around at the people who were cleaning up.

It seemed to John that Hurst was a little more shocked that Elizabeth had managed to not only keep things in order, but she’d done it with everyone following her orders. He turned away and watched Jack helping the medical team with the new refugees. It was a moment before he realised that the female ambassador was nowhere in the room.

He moved off from the side and up to the control room to look around, Elizabeth was talking with Teyla, probably hoping for space on the mainland for their new guests. Everyone else was where they usually were and there was still no sign of their guest.

John turned, moving over to the stairs and spotted her standing on the balcony overlooking the gate room. She looked back at him and smiled. He made his way over to her and standing tall with his friendliest smile on he asked one simple question.

‘Anything I can do for you Ambassador Miles?’

‘No,’ she said pleasantly, ‘I’m just watching how things work around here. I would ask if I can help, but I have a feeling I’d just be in the way, it looks like things are pretty well handled.’

‘We’ve done this a few times,’ John said, ‘relocated people whose homes were destroyed, killed Wraith and then started again with the whole thing. We pretty much work on our own here, there are some procedures from the SGC that we still adhere to but the rules are different in this galaxy and we had to adapt to stay alive and help as many others as we can.’

He watched as she reached up with a shaky hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘I don’t suppose I can trouble someone to show me back to my room to wash up?’

‘Sure,’ John said and looked down to see who was free. He caught the eye of an SO on the other side of the room and motioned for him to come over. ‘Right this way,’ he said moving down the stairs and meeting the SO at the bottom.

With her on her way out of the room, John turned and headed back up the stairs and passed Teyla to vanish into Elizabeth’s office.

~~**~~

‘General?’ Hurst questioned as he looked between General O’Neill and Ambassador Miles.

‘I just wanted to make sure you understood what just happened here,’ Jack started quietly, dropping his voice so dangerously low that both ambassadors had to strain to hear him. ‘Out there, you watched a brilliant woman, do her job, a job she has done well and under extreme pressure for more than two years.’

He paused, looking between them and wondered if he could get away with calling Hurst a name or two as he said what was going through his head. He sucked in a careful breath and talked himself quickly into being civil.

‘A mistake was made a few months ago,’ he said, ‘it was made by Doctor Rodney McKay not Doctor Elizabeth Weir and despite his admittance in this accident, she’s still the one on trial. Three years ago, I put my faith in Elizabeth stepping through that gate with 50 of the best people into the unknown. There was no way to know if they would ever have communication with us again.

‘One year after that, not only did they find a way to make contact with us, they sent us a data packet of information and videos from each person on the expedition. At that time, do you know how many people were killed?’

Jack didn’t wait for an answer, he didn’t even give a verbal one, he simply held up both hands showing only eight fingers.

‘We lost at least twice that in our first year at the SGC,’ he said for emphasis, ‘and we only had one enemy, here, they have the Wraith and the Genii. This is the same woman who you’ve spent the last 24 hours complaining about. You’ve seen the respect she gets, the friends she has and the support that’s out that door ready to help her.

‘That same woman, I might add, just saved you a whole lot of pain. While you were standing there telling her how useless she was, you put the both of you in the line of fire. If you’d have been hit by that stunner, it would have hurt; you’d have been numb for hours. I’m pretty sure that if she hadn’t pushed you back that would have happened. But if she’d waited just a moment more to act.’

Jack paused moving closer to Ambassador Hurst to make sure he understood the next line of his statement.

‘She would have lost that baby.’

The colour in Hurst’s face drained, he looked ready to pass out and Jack remembered being in the city and watching the same thing happen to Elizabeth when she found out her baby belonged to John.

‘She didn’t ask for it, they didn’t get drunk and act stupid, they are both responsible adults and they are both the command structure of this city. People count on them to work together and they do a damn good job of it. The fact that they now have a relationship is a completely different matter and I would like to add that Sheppard admitted he’s loved her for a long time; he just kept his mouth shut and his hands to himself.’

He took a step back and turned his gaze to Ambassador Miles. He gave her a smile before adding one little bit to his speech.

‘He did that out of respect for her.’

It had the effect, Hurst still looked as if he was going to be ill and had hung his head to add to it and Miles was smiling fondly at him and he guessed that she would now put up a fight to keep Elizabeth in the city.

‘I’ll leave you two to discuss your options. Excuse me,’ He turned pushed the panel of the door open and stepped out of the room.

~~**~~

Elizabeth could feel their eyes on her, watching as they passed her door; but that was the idea. She had purposely left it open, leaving the opportunity for people to step in and say their piece should they want to.

Outside in the corridor, she had seen several people pass and knew that a small group had started to gather. She ignored them, keeping her eyes downcast as she picked up the next shirt and placed it in her case.

For over two years she had slept in this room, she had picked it herself from those John had cleared in the beginning, it was spacious and simple, which was just what she liked. Throughout the years a few items had made their way in and were sitting idly on various surfaces, she kept them spread out to avoid clutter and make the room feel larger than it was, she also liked that it was almost in the middle of the tower.

She placed the last of her clothes in the suitcase and zipped it up before raising her eyes to find someone standing in her room.

‘Major,’ she said trying not to sound too airy in her greeting. She picked up a storage box and placed it on the bed as she took in his defensive stance.

‘I just came to see if it was true,’ he said and she looked up at him. ‘You’re leaving.’

She couldn’t help the friendly smile at his words and took solace that John several levels below was probably having the same conversation with someone else.

John had been staring at Ronon for a good five minutes, their eyes locked and their jaws set since the second he stepped into the room. John refused to be the first to speak, or even look away; he wanted to see what his friend made of the situation before he spoke.

‘I can kill ‘em,’ Ronon said bluntly. John just raised an eyebrow at him still not losing the staring contest. Despite everything, John contemplated this idea but it wouldn’t be in his best interest to let Ronon go and kill them.

‘Pass that over will you,’ he said pointing to his guitar and giving up on the stare out. As Ronon turned to pick it up, John pulled the case from under his bed and dropped it heavily on top.

When he did look up to take the guitar from Ronon he spotted several other people milling around in the doorway. He ignored them and continued to pack the last of his things wondering if when he started to collect his boxes and bags people would help and then follow.

That thought was entertaining, especially since it was known to everyone that their guests would be leaving in an hour’s time. He turned and picked up the last items from his desk and placed them in the storage box nearby.

No one had been told how the meeting ended that morning. After their new guests had been settled in the city and things had calmed down John had sat with Elizabeth in her office, waiting to be called into the last meeting.

Jack had come out after a few minutes and joined them, but he had said nothing, just sat and fiddled with the ornaments on his side of her desk. When they were finally called back in the atmosphere was tense, mostly for them and they had instantly noticed something different in their guests. The decision was made.

They had purposely not told a soul what had been said, it gave the city something to talk about, to guess at. It was somewhere between cruel and fun.

John checked his watch, it was time to leave, grab all his things and make the move that would probably start a riot. At least he hoped it would, what fun they could have with that.

‘Anyone want to lend a hand with this stuff?’ he asked the small group of officers hanging around in the corridor. 

Several of the men stepped in and John pointed out the things that needed to be picked up before he shouldered his bag and picked up his guitar case.

‘You really gonna do this?’ Ronon asked stopping John from leaving the room.

‘To be with Elizabeth and our baby,’ he said faking contemplation, ‘yeah.’

He rounded Ronon and moved out into the corridor and off to the left. The group of helping solders followed with the rest of his belongings. He let his mind wander; thinking that about now, Elizabeth was probably talking those outside her room into helping her carry her boxes.

Elizabeth flattened her hand out over her stomach and suddenly dropped her head, she hadn’t paid much attention to how much she’d grown over the last few weeks; the stress of this meeting had pushed it far from her mind.

She looked up again as Radek picked up the suitcase from her bed and gave him a thankful smile. She had nothing to carry; every item in her room was in one of the many storage boxes or suitcases that were carried by various members of the expedition.

She stepped out of the room and was surprised to see that the group of people standing by chatting had doubled in the last few minutes; she turned her back to them and moved off down the corridor, leading those with her belongings towards the stairs.

It was three levels up to the bridge over to the control tower and it took Elizabeth a whole level of stairs before she realised that not only did those helping her follow, but those who had just been hanging around had followed too.

As she reached the top the stairwell merged with one on the other side and John was making his way up the last part of it.

‘My group’s bigger than yours,’ she said playfully as he reached the top. John looked down at the group behind her.

‘Yeah, but most of them were probably too lazy to climb up the stairs from level three. They cheated by starting six levels above me,’ he said and Elizabeth just laughed at him. ‘Shall we?’ John asked and held out his free arm to her. 

She hooked her hand under it and they turned together to walk not over the bridge towards the gate room, but instead back into the living area.

‘So,’ Jack said as they came around the corner and spotted him standing mid way down the corridor, ‘as you’re no longer in threat of being chucked out of the city, are you ready to see your new home?’

‘You tricked us,’ Lorne said looking between the three commanding officers.

‘How so?’ Jack asked him.

‘They were packing, we thought they were leaving.’

‘We were,’ Elizabeth said, ‘our rooms,’ she gave him a wide grin and turned back to Jack. He gave them a smile and motioned to a door on his left. They moved towards it and stopped just a few steps away and waited. Elizabeth freed her arm from John and took hold of his hand instead. 

Jack waited, looking around the crowd that were muttering slightly; then to John’s relief he reached out and opened the door. Elizabeth stepped in first and took in the open room that greeted her.

The large reception room was bright and friendly, several pieces of furniture scattered around the room giving it a sense of welcome to everyone and anyone who wanted to enter. It was just as simply decorated, but the three windows side by side on the opposite side of the room gave it an airy feeling.

To her left a single door stood between two Athosian tapestries that resembled different viewpoints of the city. On the other side, three doors sat evenly spaced, she was ready to go and see what was in each room when a sound behind her made her turn. Lorne and the others were placing their things down on the floor in the open area and making their way out of the room.

‘What’s in all the rooms?’ John asked as she moved away from him and over to the door on the left.

‘Well,’ she said having opened the door, ‘I think this is our room,’ she moved into the room and stopped, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing just to her left. ‘John,’ she called a little choked and waited for him and the General to enter the room.

‘Where the hell did that come from?’

‘Oh just something I picked up for the first born Atlantean,’ Jack said, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he gave his usual playful grin in Elizabeth’s direction before adding a quick eyebrow wiggle.

Elizabeth smiled back at him before moving off to check out the crib. It was simple, but small delicate carvings in the wood made its origin well known.

‘Athosian design,’ she said flicking the catch on either side of the crib and letting the side drop down to the floor.

‘I gave the guy a photo I borrowed from one of the women, she had a picture of her little brother in one; he did that in the seven hours I was on the mainland.’

She ran her hands over the edge of crib as John stepped up beside her; this was one more stab of reality. In just over three months, there would be a new born baby in this crib, another more delicate life she would look after; only this one would be her own child.

‘I’ll leave you two alone,’ Jack said as John’s hands came to rest on her sides.

‘You okay?’ John asked after the General had gone. Elizabeth leaned back against him, thankful when he moved his hands from her sides down to her hips.

‘We’re gonna be a family John,’ she sighed.

‘Hopefully this is just the beginning,’ he whispered moving his hands around to rest on her swollen stomach for a moment before slipping his hands under her t-shirt and pants.

‘Oh?’ she questioned moving her hands to join his over her stomach. ‘How many children do you want?’

‘As many as I can talk you into carrying.’

Elizabeth laughed and turned in his arms to give him a kiss. 

‘Two,’ she said.

‘As in two after this one? Or two total?’

‘We’ll see,’ she said before moving in to kiss him again. He held her close and she could feel him deepening the kiss slowly as his fingers massaged her back.

‘You know,’ he said coyly as they broke apart, ‘we have a new bed to break in and neither of us has to work until tomorrow.’

‘Are you only going to think of sex when we’re here?’

‘When you look this sexy, yes.’

‘Oh so all I have to do when I’m not in the mood is look bad,’ she smiled at him. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s in the other rooms? And we have to see the General, Hurst and Miles off, I might let you kick Hurst through the gate if you’re a good boy.’

‘Ohhh,’ John said with a raised brow, ‘then I’ll be good, but not for that fun.’

She pushed away from him and moved out of the bedroom. There was no one in the main room and all their things had been left neatly piled around near the door for them to sort out.

She moved over to the opposite wall and to the right hand door first. She stepped in to find an almost empty room, a small sofa and side table the only items in the room.

‘Bedroom for the baby,’ John said, his arms around her waist to rest on her belly again and he leaned in to nibble at her neck.

‘Hmm,’ she hummed as he continued to nibble, ‘maybe the science team can make us an ancient style baby monitor.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ John said, ‘it’ll keep them out of trouble.

Elizabeth turned and John followed, he made it difficult to walk to the next room while he kept hold of her.

‘Two rooms and a bathroom,’ John counted as he stood behind her, hands still on her belly. 

‘Two bathrooms,’ she corrected, ‘there are another two doors in our room; I’m assuming one of them is a bathroom.’

‘I bet you that the last room is another bedroom.’

‘Well then we’d both win and there wouldn’t be any fun in the bet.’

The last room was exactly the same as the other room, which made Elizabeth worry slightly. Their baby only had a bed to sleep in and nothing else; they had no other furniture, no clothes, no supplies... nothing!

~~**~~

John was sure he couldn’t love her any more than he currently did. He stood leaning against the wall of the gate room watching as she paced the room impatiently. Back in their room she’d had a moment’s slip out of her usual calm and controlled self and into the crazy world of panic.

Something had made her realise just how unprepared they were to have a baby, not just them being parents but for the city to handle such a task. She’d gone through a list of questions. 

How long would she be out of work when the baby was born?  
What would they do with the baby when she came back to work?  
What would they do for diapers?  
Baby food  
Clothes for her as she got bigger  
Clothes for the baby  
Bed sheets  
A bed when it was old enough

He had sat on the bed and watched her walk back and forth in front of him, her mind running a mile a second and her hand idly running over her raised belly.

She was in a similar state at the moment, only all her wild ranting seemed to be contained to her brain. He could see the cogs working as she turned back to face him and crossed the room.

Back in their room, he could have jumped her if he thought he could get away with it. Would have stood up, stopped her and taken her shirt off before starting a slow kissing trail down her chest. He still could in fact, but he was sure he would get in trouble for it.

He looked up, taking a quick glance at the control room looking for their guests, but there was still no sign of them. They were meant to leave ten minutes ago, but their last minute trip to the mainland seemed to be taking longer than expected.

Elizabeth had stopped pacing on the other side of the gate room with her back to him and her head down. He watched her for a moment, her arms bent telling him that both hands were now on her stomach. He pushed off the wall and moved to stand behind her.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said carefully resting his hands on her hips and looking over her shoulder.

She didn’t answer, barely moving her head to acknowledge him she pulled in a deep breath.

‘Elizabeth?’ he said, now a little more worried. ‘What’s wrong?’

Instead of answering him, Elizabeth took his hands from her hips and moved them to her stomach. He had to take a step forward to complete the task, but he didn’t mind that. He creased his brow wondering what she wanted him to feel.

‘Did you feel that?’

‘Feel what?’

‘I think the baby’s moving,’ she said breathlessly. ‘There!’ she added pressing his hands into her stomach just a little more.

‘I don’t feel it.’

‘Give it a week or two.’

John pulled away from Elizabeth and turned to look at Jack. They’d been lost in the moment and hadn’t heard him or the ambassadors enter the room and approach them.

‘You’re only twenty weeks, it’s just learning what movement is, before you know it, it won’t stop moving.’

‘It’s slightly worrying that you know more about this than I do,’ Elizabeth said.

‘Like I told John on my last visit, I noticed everything from the time I found out Sarah was pregnant.’

Silence fell and John looked around the room wishing this moment in time was over and the ambassadors of doom were no longer in their city.

‘Ready to go?’ John asked after a moment of quiet.

‘Trying to get rid of us?’ Jack asked him giving him a cheeky grin.

‘Yes,’ John said coyly and caught sight of Elizabeth’s almost horrified look as she turned to glare at him. Jack simply laughed at them and John knew he wanted to stay and see how they would work through all the problems that were likely to come up.

‘Well, perhaps we have outstayed out welcome,’ Miles said.

‘We got a welcome?’ Jack said with a grin and raised brow.

Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably at John’s side; he knew that two days ago when she had first welcomed them, she had been in a very unpleasant mood. She had plastered a smile on her face, but they both knew that wouldn’t completely hide what she was feeling at the time.

‘Shall we?’ Jack said after another moment’s silence.

‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said and motioned up to the control room for the gate to be dialled. ‘I hope I didn’t make your stay too unpleasant,’ she said sounding more honest than she looked.

‘It was,’ Hurst started and had to stop to think of an appropriate word, ‘enlightening,’ he said at last. ‘I apologise for having caused you some stress to begin with.’

‘Nothing more than I can handle,’ she said with a smile, ‘or that I get from John.’

‘Hey!’

His protest was drowned out by the gate as it opened for their visitors. But the look he gave her did a good enough job of showing his faked shock at her comment. 

The ambassadors stepped forward and exchanged their farewells to each of them and John took Jack’s glare as a sign to walk them closer to the gate. He stopped nearby, bid them a final goodbye and watched them step through the gate.

He turned back to see Elizabeth and Jack exchange an embrace. As he pulled back from her his hand went to her stomach and John felt a moment of jealously but ignored it knowing it was a simple gesture of friendship.

‘If you need anything,’ Jack said quietly although John could just hear what was said, ‘you just put in the requests and I’ll make sure you get it,’ Jack turned towards him and John forced a friendly smile on his face.

‘Sir,’ he said, giving a small and half-hearted salute.

‘If I get one report,’ he said giving John a menacing look, ‘that tells me you’ve hurt her...’ he faded off and John was thankful that his expression lightened, ‘who am I kidding, it wouldn’t happen and if it did you’d probably be able to beat the crap out of me first.’

John smiled, not at the words the General said, but because behind the man Elizabeth was shaking with suppressed laughter. Jack shook his hand gave him a quick pat on the back of his shoulder before stepping quickly through the gate.

John was half way to Elizabeth before the gate shut down, he didn’t waste time wrapping his arms around her and was shocked at the cheer that rose around them.

~~**~~

‘You should sit down.’

It was the eighth time he’d said those exact words and with each time she laughed a little more at him. He worried too much, or he was trying too hard, either way it was interesting to watch him like this.

They’d been back in their room for six hours now, sorting through all their things. They had stopped for dinner after the first hour and they had now finally finished sorting out their things.

‘I’ll sit down if you do,’ she said giving him a coy grin. John moved away from the last storage box, the last of their boxes and the one that held her ornaments and dropped down onto the sofa.

She watched him pat the space beside him. He was cute when taking care of her and she wondered if he would be like this all the time or if he’d get used to the fact that she could still do all her own things.

She moved over to the seat but didn’t sit down. She stopped dead in front of him and waited for just a moment before moving into his lap, one knee on either side of him. He raised an eyebrow as she got comfortable and it made her smile again.

‘I like this seat better,’ she said pushing herself close against him and leaning in to kiss at his neck. She arched into his hands as they moved up her thighs and over her back, his touch made her moan even though it was over the top of her clothes.

‘What brought this on?’ He asked dropping his head back and moving his hands back to her thighs.

‘I don’t know, but I like it,’ she said moving up to kiss him and raising off his legs to reach his lips.

‘Me too,’ John said increasing the pleasure of their kiss and running his hands up her legs to her t-shirt. He dipped his fingers inside and Elizabeth shuddered at his touch. He continued up her back, gathering her shirt up as he moved until he had to break their kiss to remove it.

Elizabeth sat back, dropping her shirt off the back of the chair. She tugged at John’s shirt and he got the hint and moved forward to help her remove it. With his shirt gone he dropped back and Elizabeth smiled at him as his eyes drifted down her chest to her full breasts.

‘Won’t it be fun,’ she said running her hands up to her breasts, ‘when I get a bra with cups that come off,’ John shifted underneath her and she took advantage of his moment of weakness to thrust her chest at him. ‘Would you settle for now,’ she started, running her hands up his chest to his shoulders, ‘for the front clasp of this one?’

‘You’re a rotten tease,’ he said, his hands ghosting up her sides.

‘You seem to be enjoying it,’ she replied pushing down into his lap and feeling his erection against her own covered sex.

‘There’s a beautiful and very sexy woman in my lap, you get that reaction regardless,’ John said as his hands moved across her breasts and easing the clip apart.

‘You forgot “carrying your baby” from the list,’ she said just before he wrapped his lips around one of her nipples.

‘That’s a bonus,’ he said as he switched breasts. ‘Not to mention I’ve been in this state since we first set foot in this room.’

He pulled her back to him and returned his attention to her breasts. She didn’t complain, instead she shifted against him, pressing her belly to his and rocking her hips against the bulge in his pants.

John moaned against her and shoved her bra off her shoulders before quickly swinging her around and laying her on the sofa. She was thankful for the large chair that was already in the room, the wide seat gave plenty of room for her to lay comfortably.

‘There isn’t going to be a single inch of your skin that doesn’t tingle when I’m finished with you!’ John said with a chuckle as he kissed down from her breasts to the waistband of her pants.

‘My skin or yours?’

‘Cheeky,’ he said placing a kiss on her belly before tugging her pants down over her hips and down her legs. Elizabeth had to laugh at him, as his nails scrapped softly down her legs.

Her laughter turned to moaning as John aimed a kiss on her thigh. He started very close to her sex and started to trail his way down her body until he could kiss at her ankle bone.

She relaxed into his touch, enjoying the fact that she could, that from now on she was free to have a relationship with him. Not just in the privacy of their room, but out in the open. Elizabeth had no intention of letting it get in the way of how the city was run; in fact she planned to just keep their private relationship, private.

John made no effort to remove her underwear as he travelled both her legs, inside and out. She watched as he moved on, taking her hand and playing with her fingers as he left wet kisses up her arms. 

Elizabeth found it hard to work out which was more frustrating, that she could feel his pants still in place over his legs or the slow pace in which he was moving up her left shoulder towards her neck.

‘John,’ she groaned feeling the tingling sensation building in the pit of her stomach as he moved over her throat and over her other shoulder.

‘Hmmm,’ he hummed against her skin moving down across her chest before starting his trail down between them.

‘Oh God,’ she breathed feeling his lips move along the base of her right breast, circling slowly up towards the pert nipple. She couldn’t help but close her eyes as he drew nearer. 

Before he came in contact with the tight bud, John pulled back and Elizabeth groaned in frustration and thrust her chest towards him. He kept his hands on her sides and she could feel his eyes on her body as he squirmed slightly at his touch; when she settled back he began the process on her other breast.

Elizabeth whimpered. The last thing she wanted was the slow torture he was placing on her; she wanted nothing more than to make love to him. Show him that what they had been working so hard to keep was each other as well as the city in which they lived.

Right now, the only thing she could possibly want more than him was to hold her newborn baby in her arms. But that feeling was far in the future, something she could wait a few months for.

As expected, when he came too close to her painfully tight nipple, he pulled away and quickly placed a trail of kisses down over her belly. He lingered at the base of her belly at the spot where the growth of his child was the most prominent.

‘Do you want a girl or a boy?’ He asked ignoring her whimpers and pleas for more contact. She couldn’t answer; the question was pointless in her mind at this moment in time.

‘Either,’ she said hearing the breathlessness in her own voice.

‘That wasn’t what I asked,’ he said and pulled completely away from her body. She opened her eyes to find where he went and found him unbuckling his belt. She pushed away from the chair and reached out, running her hands up his legs and past his hands to his stomach.

Watching for the right moment, Elizabeth waited for him to release the belt buckle and quickly moved down to seize the top of his pants. She made quick work of his button and zipper and had to push his hands out of her way so she could slowly lower them and his boxer shorts.

He stood gloriously naked and maddeningly erect in front of her eyes, she wanted to devour him, in more ways than one and her impatience was pushing all sorts of sordid thoughts through her brain.

Elizabeth bit her lower lip as she trailed her fingers up his legs towards her goal, but he stopped her, taking her hands in his and pulling her to her feet.

She was thankful when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up against him. His erection trapped between them and her breasts pinned to his chest. She was very aware of both facts, but neither of them overtook the flutter that started in her stomach.

‘John,’ she whispered as he kissed lightly at her neck, ‘I think the baby’s moving again.’

He released her only long enough to turn her back to his chest and placed his hands back on her stomach.

‘Bare belly under my fingers,’ he whispered against her neck, ‘let me feel my child’s linger.’

‘That was terrible,’ she chuckled as he started to shift, moving his feet and slowly walking them towards the bedroom.

‘I know, but there’s a beautiful backside pressed against me, its clouding my mind.’

‘I know,’ she offered feeling her legs tremble as he shifted against her in a very pleasant way. ‘I want it to be somewhere else,’ she breathed.

‘I want to go slow,’ he muttered between the kisses on her neck; ‘slow and easy.’

‘I can’t do slow,’ she said, ‘I want you, right now,’ the last two words were said with such conviction she knew it would take him off guard. Using that to her advantage she turned them so he had his back to the bed and pushed him back onto it.

Teasingly she crawled up him to kiss him, a slow lingering kiss that she pulled slowly back from to let her lips hover just out of reach of his. She placed her knees on either side of his hips and lowered herself down to make contact between them.

Her panties were the only barrier between them, the thin lacy black material the only thing stopping her from taking him there and then; but it wasn’t going to hold out for long.

Frustrated, wound high and ready to burst from the build of his teasing, Elizabeth reached down and pushed the material to the side, took hold of his length and eased down on him.

The sensation rippled through her body like a wave spreading quickly in all directions. She leaned forward into Johns arms and curled her back to keep her pregnant belly away from him.

From the concentrated look on his face, he knew she wouldn’t last long, but he also knew she needed this. His hands travelled down her back until he could move them to her hips and he pulled her up from him before forcing her back down.

She shuddered at the friction and pushed back from his chest to take up the motion, pulling up and dropping back, riding him just as she had wanted to do weeks ago when they first did this. Well since she found out she was pregnant anyway.

There was no ache in her hips this time, no pain in her thighs or knees, it felt wonderful and it only took a few hurried strokes before she came. Her walls tightening on him and her panted moans became one constant string of unintelligible babble. 

She rested back on his chest, vaguely aware of his hands on her hips keeping her from dropping all the pressure on her stomach. After a few moments, he shifted and she felt his still erect member slip from inside her.

John moved, laying her on the bed and arranging her on her back beside him. He tucked one of her arms under his to place his own arm under her neck. It worked to bring her closer to him and he used the position to lean in close and kiss her passionately.

She moaned into his mouth when his other hand travelled down her cheek and neck towards her breasts. She was considering a form of punishment if he once again ignored her nipples when he ran his fingers over the top of her breast trapping one between two of his digits.

‘John,’ she breathed unable to believe how unbelievably turned on she still was.

‘Shh,’ he whispered as he moved away from her lips to tickle the bud with his tongue. 

He had to shift down slightly to rest comfortably at her side but she didn’t notice. She was too busy drowning in the sensation of his mouth on her hardened and aching nipples and the hand that was drawing slowly down her stomach towards her sex.

Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath as his fingers slipped easily through her pussy and dipped just inside her tunnel. Even with her eyes closed she was sure he was watching her face.

He pulled away from her body to watch and she opened her eyes to watch him in return. Elizabeth felt her heart tighten with the look he was giving her, she couldn’t stop the smile, not even as she bit her lower lip, she could see the love plain and clear on his face.

‘You will never know how beautiful you are to me, Elizabeth,’ he breathed and she had to close her eyes for a moment to fight the overwhelming emotion that flooded her system. ‘I love you.’

‘Shh,’ she said, bringing her hand over to place a finger over his lips. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’

‘I want to,’ he said, moving his hand to rest on her stomach again, ‘I love you both.’

‘Nothing is going to stop me from loving you, just like nothing will stop me living in this city, with you at my side.’

‘Nothing,’ he said tenderly kissing her.

‘Nothing,’ she breathed as he pulled back. ‘Make love to me, John.’

He shifted, pulling himself between her legs and pulling her knees up to hook over his hips as he moved his hand to take hold of his length and pushed slowly inside her.

She reached up for him, and he leaned down so she could wrap her arms around his neck. He moved down at her guidance until she could kiss him. It was at this point that he began to move, thrusting slowly and pressing his hips against hers.

Even at their slow pace, they both struggled to keep their control. John’s slow thrusting became slightly hurried and random as she thought not to tighten on him and let go of the peaking orgasm.

‘Oh God you feel so good,’ he groaned and Elizabeth squeezed her eyes closed, the pleasure in his voice adding to her own climbing release. ‘Let it go, Elizabeth,’ he tried but she shook her head at him, she was determined to hold out a little longer.

He shifted, dropping from his arms to his elbows at her sides and placed all his weight on one arm. Elizabeth snapped her eyes open to glare at him, she knew exactly what he was going to do and she knew it would be the end of her control.

‘Don’t,’ she breathed at him holding his gaze. He evened out his weight over her again and leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

‘You don’t want me to play with your clit?’ he asked in a low growl and she shuddered from head to toe. ‘Maybe you’re too sensitive down there,’ he added and she shifted her hips without meaning to and felt him shift inside her to a beautiful spot.

‘Don’t,’ she growled through gritted teeth.

Their breathing was all the sound they heard for a while more until John moved closer to her, resting more of his body over hers all the while mindful of how much pressure he was placing on her stomach.

‘I love you more than anything, Elizabeth,’ he whispered.

It was all it took, she felt her walls tighten on him and she let out one long low moan that seemed to emerge from every segment of her body and spirit.

Above her, John stopped moving and he bit down lightly on her shoulder as his body started to shake, he was holding back until the end of her orgasm and it seemed to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He didn’t seem to manage it either, she was still shuddering, squirming on the bed beneath him when he let go. She felt his seed spill inside her warming her stomach until it felt as if it could glow.

Elizabeth used all her strength to catch him, stopping him from collapsing on her and he shifted quickly from her body to drop back onto the bed beside her. She rolled onto her side and moved in against his side.

‘You’re amazing,’ she said knowing that would be a stroke to his ego but finding for the first time that she didn’t care.

‘You do realise,’ he said pausing to take a few gulps of air, ‘we have three more rooms and two bathrooms to christen.’

She laughed at him and slapped playfully at his chest for the comment.

‘If you want more kids, John,’ she replied resting her head on his shoulder and draping her arm across his stomach, ‘then you’ll never say that again.’

He shook with laughter for a moment before he turned onto his side slightly and wrapped his arms around her to pull her close. She vaguely felt the kiss on her forehead before she let out a contented sigh and let her eyes drift shut.


	11. Chapter 11

‘Her due date is three days away,’ Radek voiced in a careful whisper.

‘I know,’ Chuck replied seemingly very aware that Elizabeth was sitting only a few feet away. She had decided on the control room as the chairs had much stronger backs to them than her office one did. 

Her laptop was open on the console in front of her, the latest report file open and what she was currently attempting to read. Radek had come up to command on his shift rotation, something the senior staff had set up to start when she had hit eight months. 

It had been Carson and John’s hope that at this point, she would be reasonable enough to stop working and stay in her room or sit comfortably somewhere in the city. It had lasted all of three days and then she had started to come up to command when certain people were here.

John, obviously and Ronon or Teyla, but this was the first time she’d been here for the back end of Lorne’s shift and the start of Radek’s.

Today however, it was because something was different. She’d been awake most of the night, unable to sleep with John and his team off world, her back had started to twinge early in the morning and she had felt the baby shift lower in her stomach than normal.

She stretched her back and took a deep breath only to release it slowly, throughout the morning with Lorne she’d become a master at hiding her discomfort. For months she’d been getting ready for this, on the first visit of the Daedalus after Ambassadors Hurst and Miles had left, Jack had sent books for her to read, “What to expect when you’re expecting” and “Baby Basics : A Guide for New Parents”.

She’d read them a few times over by now, taken in every piece of information they provided and listened to the horror stories of what happened to the families of those around her.

She thought she was ready, considered that there was no way she could be any more prepared. Carson had explained how it would be on the actual day. Two doctors and a nurse in the room because Carson refused not to be there and he didn’t know exactly what to do, and any two people she wanted.

“Carson, Kelly, Emily, John and Teyla,” she thought to herself and took another deep breath before returning to the report she was reading.

It must have been a good fifteen minutes later when the gate began to dial and Elizabeth looked up at it and then over at Radek. She had not interfered with Evan when he was here earlier and she would not get in the way of Radek either. She simply didn’t want to sit alone.

‘Colonel Sheppard’s IDC,’ Chuck said not looking away from the screen. Elizabeth guessed he didn’t know where to look, her or Radek.

‘Let them in,’ Radek said as she continued to read, or pretend to read, the report.

She waited, raising only her eyebrow as the sound of the shield shutting off met her ears and then the first person stepped through. Footsteps across the gate room told her that whoever stepped through first hadn’t stopped to look around.

‘What are you doing here?’ John snapped and Elizabeth turned her head to give him a pleading look. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘we have a sort of problem.’

‘A “sort of” problem?’

‘Maybe we should go to the conference room for this,’ John said moving over and helping her to her feet. She followed him across the room making sure Radek was following the group too.

She moved slowly, letting Radek overtake her and was thankful that no one stopped to look back for her as another small pain pulled at her back and she had to take several breaths to control it. 

‘The Gemlan’s are requesting a meeting with our leader,’ John said as she eased herself down into the nearest chair. ‘I told them I couldn’t arrange that just yet.’

‘Tried not to tell them why, but they managed to guess that you were pregnant,’ Ronon added.

‘Right,’ he gave Ronon a stern look as if to say he hadn’t wanted to mention that.

‘So what’s the problem?’ She asked getting impatient.

‘Well putting them off was easy, they’re happy to wait a few months then come and visit us, under our rules and regulations of course.’

‘But?’

‘They run on a monarchy,’ Rodney spat derisively, ‘and they are stupid enough to think everyone else does too.’

‘The Wraith do,’ Ronon shot in his direction and Elizabeth used the distraction to ease through her current contraction.

‘In short,’ John interrupted giving them both a stern look, ‘they want to come and meet the Queen of Atlantis.’

‘The Queen?’ Elizabeth said with a raised brow. ‘I don’t think me posing as a Queen is going to go down too well with the expedition members, or the SGC for that matter,’ she gave a short laugh and looked around the room. ‘What?’

‘They have vast amounts of food to trade, as well as medical supplies and Ancient technology that they cannot use,’ Teyla put in carefully.

‘They’ve also managed to create their own weapon that will target only wraith ships,’ John took over and then broke into a grin. ‘It shoots on its own when it detects them.’

‘They are willing to share how to make this?’ Radek asked just as eagerly as John had suggested.

‘Not just how to make and repair,’ John said showing more joy in this idea than Elizabeth had ever seen, ‘they’ll help us make the first one and give us the supplies to do it.’

‘But only if they can meet you,’ Teyla pointed out. ‘Elizabeth?’

She ignored it, concentrating for a moment on the wave of pain that started pushing from her back towards the front of her stomach. Elizabeth dropped her head and sucked in a quiet breath and began to release it quietly.

‘Elizabeth?’ John’s voice penetrated her skull like a fog horn, ‘what is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she said shortly attempting to control her breathing and ignore all the eyes on her, ‘my back’s just starting to hurt a lot.’

‘Elizabeth,’ John said unconvinced.

‘I’ve been in labor for three hours,’ she admitted quietly.

‘Whoa,’ Rodney bellowed from across the room and he and Radek moved to their feet quickly. ‘Whoa, whoa and double whoa!’

‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Radek barked before starting to mutter in Czech.

‘You didn’t tell anyone?’ John said getting up and unlike Rodney who now stood watching her and Radek who stood babbling to himself he started pace the small area around him. ‘Did you tell Carson or Kelly?’

Elizabeth shook her head watching him as he took in her answer and turned to thump his way back across the room and shove the door open.

‘John,’ Teyla called before following him from the room. Rodney and Radek left moments later.

Elizabeth dropped her head, she knew John would panic when she told him, if she was honest with herself, she knew most of the people around her would start to worry that something could go wrong. It was the reason she didn’t say anything.

In order to stop her own rising panic of what was to come, she had kept it quiet. Telling anyone would have meant a visit to the infirmary and that was the last place she wanted to be right now.

‘You okay?’

Elizabeth looked up as Ronon caught her attention, she hadn’t realise he had stayed in the room. She nodded mutely at him, not knowing what to say now that everyone seemed annoyed with her.

‘You didn’t want people to know?’

‘I didn’t want to end up confined to the infirmary with everyone watching me,’ she corrected, ‘I’ve read and been told that this could take anywhere from eight to twelve hours.’

‘That’s a long time,’ he said simply, ‘especially stuck in one room.’

‘Yes it is,’ she said with a small laugh as she ran her hand down over her bulging stomach. ‘I should go and find John,’ she said pushing up to her feet and pausing to control the pain of her latest contraction.

‘Thirteen minutes,’ Ronon said, and she looked up at him, ‘they’re thirteen minutes apart.’

‘They time the gap on Sateda too?’

‘No,’ he said with a grin, ‘Sheppard was telling me how people on Earth deal with childbirth while we were on our way back.’

‘Did he tell you at what point I have no choice but to go to the infirmary?’

‘Five minutes,’ he said following her from the room.

‘Have you ever been through this?’ She asked as she navigated the stairs down from the control room.

‘Nope, on Sateda, the woman has three close friends who stay with her from the moment it starts until the doctor lets the father in.’

‘So you miss everything?’

‘Pretty much,’ he said with a shrug. He stayed with her as they made their way over the bridge to her room. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue what to do,’ he admitted as she stopped a few steps from their destination to take a deep breath.

She could feel his eyes on her as she thought back over the increasing pain, it wasn’t painful enough yet that she needed support, but it was getting close and her back was taking its toll.

Before she could move again, the door ahead opened and John emerged followed closely by Kelly.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ John snapped at her.

‘Colonel,’ Kelly warned him for his tone, ‘its fine, she can walk around, in fact it’s encouraged.’ 

‘It is?’ Ronon questioned.

‘Yes, it helps progress things,’ she explained, ‘a warm bath, a good walk with short breaks, something to eat to keep her energy up,’ she continued, ‘and lots and lots of water.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Elizabeth said with a thankful smile at the doctor.

‘Let me check your progress then you can do as much of that as you like,’ Kelly said taking Elizabeth’s arm and placing a hand firmly on her lower back. ‘And from this moment on, you need someone with you at all times.’

~~**~~

John tried hard not to wince as Elizabeth dug her nails into his palm; the pain she was in was undoubtedly more than his. At that moment in time, she had her back to him and she was leaning forward slightly as the pain of her latest contraction washed over her. He couldn’t fathom how much this must hurt, in all honesty he didn’t want to; this was something he was thankful he’d never have to deal with.

‘Eight minutes,’ he said calmly in her ear as she leaned back against him. It had been six hours since he’d got back and found out she was in labor, six hours since Kelly had checked her over, deemed her three centimetres dilated and told her to have a warm bath, a long walk and lunch.

She’d done that, started with the bath, with John at her side, he’d had fun washing her belly, drawing his fingers down the few stretch marks she had.

After that and the slow and drawn out process of drying and dressing, he’d switched with Teyla for a few hours, having to take his shift in the control room that she had insisted he keep to.

He knew, as he’d been told when they switched back, that they’d spent most of their time on the various balconies of the populated section of the city. He didn’t know why she hadn’t wandered around, talked to people then, instead of waiting for him. It made it harder now that her contraction time was really low, she couldn’t stay in any one room long enough to hold a full conversation.

People were also now very cautious around her. They moved off as soon as possible, the men quicker than the rest and John noticed most of the military personnel were avoiding them altogether; them and Rodney and Radek.

Along with that, she was now easily frustrated with the smallest things. He suspected she was nearing that wonderful stage he’d heard all about, where this was entirely his fault and she wanted it over with this second. One thing he’d learned quickly about Elizabeth Weir was that she didn’t like waiting.

He followed her as she pushed away from him and moved into the nearby lab. He looked around the room and noted that the two people she probably wanted to talk to were nowhere in sight.

Now he was positive Rodney and Radek were avoiding them. She took a deep breath and moved back out of the room.

‘I need to sit down,’ she said offering him her hand. He told hold of the hand and then her arm firmly just above the elbow and started to guide her away from the lab.

‘Then how about we go get lunch, then go back to our room?’

‘Sounds good, can we just eat in our room?’ 

‘I can’t carry food and support you, that’ll be messy.’

He loved the small laugh she let out as they rounded the corner and found themselves face to face with Evan Lorne.

‘Major,’ John said, noticing the sudden uncomfortable flicker that ran across his face.

‘Sir, Ma’am,’ offered not really turning his head to look at Elizabeth.

‘How’s it going?’ John asked as Lorne shifted from foot to foot.

‘I heard Doctor Collins was looking for you, to find out... how it was going,’ he vaguely waved a hand in Elizabeth’s direction and shifted his glance to the person who walked quickly by.

John was ready to reply and give Lorne his reprieve to escape when he felt her grip tighten on his hand. He turned as the contraction washed over her in full force and she reached out with her other hand to grip Evan.

John checked his watch as she released the shocked military officer and eased her grin on him. He was going to open his mouth, give Evan his escape and tell her the time when she squeezed her eyes closed.

‘What?’

‘My water just broke,’ she said not opening her eyes.

The strangled and disgusted noise from Lorne caught his attention and he turned to look at him. A mixture of fear and disgust played on his face and he looked ready to bolt if she tried to grab him again. John nodded to him and watched as he practically ran past them and down the corridor.

‘Maybe we should go to the infirmary now,’ John said still keeping his tone calm despite the fact that his heart was pounding wildly in his chest and horrible dread that he was going to suck royally at being a parent.

‘No,’ she said moving on along the corridor, ‘not yet.’

‘Elizabeth,’ he called. He turned and spotted Teyla waiting not too far away with one of the cleaning crew, he smiled at her before turning and taking off down the corridor after Elizabeth.

John was thankful that the mess hall was relatively empty, they had barely stepped in when another contraction hit and she had to bury her head in his chest to stop from screaming out. He kept a tight hold of her, rubbing his hands across her back where ever he could reach until it passed, he couldn’t help but give her an extra squeeze as she let out a small sob as the pain died down.

He looked around, most of the people who were in the room were watching them, a mix of confusion and apprehension in their expressions. There was one woman in the crowd and she looked sympathetically at them and John knew she’d been through this before.

In the far corner, Rodney sat with his back to them and John wondered if he knew they were there or if he’d moved when they came in.

John pulled back from Elizabeth and checked she was alright before he moved over to the counter and picked up two sandwiches and bottles of water. He joined her again and they walked carefully towards the back of the room.

They settled across from Rodney and watched as he struggled between wanting to leave and wanting to stay and finish his lunch.

‘Hey,’ John said calmly pretending nothing had changed.

‘Hey,’ Rodney said back and glanced quickly at Elizabeth who was sat directly opposite him. He was clearly uncomfortable with her sitting at the same table and John wondered if he would run when the next contraction hit.

He checked his watch, five minutes and three, four, five seconds had passed since they had stepped in and she’d had her last contraction. It had been six minutes before that and he suspected there would be another one any second now.

As if on cue, Elizabeth reached out and with a firm grip on his arm panted out the pains in her stomach. It took a moment before she realised that her other hand had seized Rodney’s arm which he had mistakenly had resting on the table circling his plate.

Her nails were dug in against his bare skin as she tried desperately to keep her breathing and not cry out. The pained look on Rodney’s face would have been comical if he hadn’t been so worried that Elizabeth was now suffering every five minutes.

‘Jesus Christ, you trying to break my arm?’ he whined as she let go and leaned against John. ‘That really hurt, you have no idea how painful that was.’

‘Shut up Rodney,’ John said quickly hoping he would keep quiet. Elizabeth had already drawn blood from John’s arm earlier that day and had apologised for the next three contractions while attempting not to hold onto him for support. But Rodney was fine; he simply had a slight bruise. ‘I think it’s time to go now,’ he said reaching and massaging her back.

‘Don’t tell me to shut up, that really hurt,’ he said clearly and John watched a few people turn to look at them, ‘I’m gonna have to go get this checked out.’

John opened his mouth to argue with Rodney but Elizabeth moved, standing up and reaching over the table to take hold of Rodney by the front of his shirt. 

‘Don’t you dare think that the pain you’re in right now is anything compared to what you’ve put me through.’

John was sure she would have said more or at least hit him, if another contraction hadn’t started. John was on his feet instantly as the unexpected pain shot through her stomach and she practically screamed through it.

He waited for it to pass before, ignoring all those watching them, pulling her close and making his way through the room and out to the corridor.

The room set up for this occasion was a welcomed sight, it had taken far too long to reach and several contractions. John ignored the aching in his hand as he moved her to the bed, she didn’t want to lie down; she’d made that clear earlier when he’d tried to get her to rest in their room. 

Kelly was already in the room with Teyla, they were sat comfortably as if they had been waiting for some time for them to arrive. The pained moan Elizabeth let out as they stepped in alerted them to the fact that she was there and Teyla was on her feet and out the door quickly.

It seemed like a blur. Kelly checked on Elizabeth while Teyla was out of the room. She had just told him that the next contraction would be the start of the actual birth when the door opened and Teyla, Carson and Emily entered.

Elizabeth had, as expected, refused to lie down; she leaned over the bed and kept a firm hold of Teyla’s arm. Teyla kept to the other side of the bed tending a cool cloth to her face while laying one arm out in front of Elizabeth for her to keep hold of.

John and Carson took up places on either side of her. He couldn’t honestly say he knew what Carson did; he was far too interested in easing the pain in Elizabeth’s back and keep her hair off her face. He spent most of the time leaning close to her ear and promising her it would be over soon.

He heard nothing but the pain as Elizabeth groaned, the panting of her breathing and the screams as she bore down with each contraction. He only realised it was over when she released a relaxing growl and he turned at the sound of a short smack and the sudden wail of their new born baby.

For the first time since everyone had entered the room, John spotted Emily; she was crouched low with a blanket spread across her arms. There was a moment where Kelly offered John the scissors to cut the cord before she did so herself and Emily quickly wrapped the cloth around it.

‘Move her to the bed,’ Carson instructed as Kelly and Emily moved away, but John wasn’t paying attention. His eyes followed the tiny bundle over to the other side of the room.

‘John,’ Teyla said sharply and he turned and finally started to help Elizabeth into bed.

He didn’t hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears as Carson checked Elizabeth and on the other side of the room, Kelly and Emily checked on the baby. He was at a loss for what to do and caught between two choices for a moment; he could slip over to the other side, see his child and find out if it was a girl or a boy. Or he could wait with Elizabeth, make sure she was alright.

‘My baby,’ Elizabeth breathed after a moment and John turned back to her and took her hand. ‘John!’ she said a little more panicked.

‘It’s okay,’ he soothed and watched as she relaxed back on the bed in exhaustion. He was ready to explain that they were cleaning the baby and checking it was healthy when Emily turned back with the baby in her arms and approached John.

‘Colonel,’ she said tentatively as she stopped in front of him, ‘meet your daughter,’ she added and moved to hand him the baby.

John fussed for a moment making sure he had a firm hold of the child before he finally looked at the delicate face. His breath caught, her eyes were open and she looked up at him, the dark of her eyes seeming almost black. She blinked sleepily at him for a moment before drifting off to sleep.

‘Wow,’ he breathed as she sighed in his arms. ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, turning to look at her and finding her watching him, ‘she’s beautiful.’

He moved closer to her and leaned down to carefully place the baby in her arms. The beautiful little girl stirred and restlessly screwed up her face to show her displeasure with being disturbed.

He turned as Elizabeth studied the little face and realised that everyone had left them alone. He turned back and sat on the edge of the bed, he watched for a moment as Elizabeth studied their child, her fingers running carefully down her small cheek. Behind him, someone cleared their throat and John turned to see Carson standing just inside the door to the main infirmary.

‘There are a few people waiting for word on their newest family member,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘And Elizabeth needs to get some rest,’ he added watching as Elizabeth tried desperately to keep her eyes open and on the baby’s face.

‘He’s right,’ he said as Carson left, ‘you need to sleep.’

‘Are you going to take her out?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, reaching down and lifting his daughter from Elizabeth, ‘just for a minute and then I’ll bring her back.’

All she could manage as a reply was a small hmm of approval. John leaned in and kissed her quickly on the lips before she drifted off, then turned and made his way slowly to the infirmary to show off his baby girl.

~~**~~

John couldn’t stop himself from watching her. She was beautiful, lying on the bed next to him, her delicate features relaxed and undisturbed. She heaved a small sigh in her sleep and John couldn’t help but smile at the action.

This was the first night. She’d been back in their room with them for no more than three hours and he couldn’t take his eyes off her little round face. He’d studied her by now, her tiny fingers and toes, cute little button nose and pudgy cheeks.

He fiddled with the white blanket that was covering her body; she so far had no clothes but thankfully, the Athosian’s had sent blankets and bedding two days ago when the news of her birth had spread.

John’s eyes darted quickly from the baby girl to Elizabeth’s face. Her eyes were closed and her features relaxed as if she was asleep, but John knew better. She had been told to rest and she wasn’t about to disagree with the idea, but she couldn’t sleep now anymore than he could.

Between them, the cause of this insomnia was peacefully stretching and John watched as her button nose screwed up for a second before relaxing again.

He caught movement and looked over to Elizabeth again; she still had her eyes closed. The hand that had been resting on her belly when he last looked, was now gently rubbing the hand and fingers of their daughter.

‘We need a name for her,’ she said quietly opening her eyes to look at him.

‘I can’t think of anything but cute little names she’ll hate me for when she’s older,’ he said. ‘Like “Button” for her cute little button nose.’

‘Yeah,’ Elizabeth said finally opening her eyes to look at him, ‘she’ll hate you for that one.’

‘You okay?’

He watched her as she closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. She looked uncomfortable, which was understandable considering 50 hours ago she’d pushed a seven pound baby out of her body. He couldn’t really take that detail in, the mechanics of it didn’t add up to him.

‘I kinda miss being pregnant,’ she said and John watched her hand move back to her stomach. ‘She’s beautiful,’ she added, ‘I could lay here with her forever.’

John laughed lightly, the thought of that was appealing, but he knew it wouldn’t last. This was Elizabeth Weir, diplomat and leader of Atlantis; he gave her four weeks before she was attempting to get back to her job.

He reached out and took her hand, moving it to rest on the baby between them before he looked up to catch her eye.

‘Clio,’ he said quietly.

‘As in Cleopatra?’

‘Nope,’ he said using her hand to stroke the baby’s face. ‘With an “i” not an “e”, as in the Roman muse of history.’

He watched her, studying the baby’s face and contemplating the name. He could see that she was mulling over the good and bad of the name and meaning.

‘Also means “Fame and Glory” in Greek.’

‘Have you been reading a book of names and meanings or something?’

‘Actually, I’ve been talking to Radek; he knows all this rubbish for some reason, kept giving me suggestions. He connected Clio with a not as pretty name in the ancient database, one of the women who worked on the gene reproduction experiment.’

‘Oh?’ she questioned dropping her hand back to the bed and watching as the baby shifted and screwed up her face as if something had disturbed her.

‘Clinelo, I think it was, the woman who started the gene reproduction project,’ he offered trying to remember the name Radek had said, ‘she was the one who realised that over time the gene would fade out if they didn’t do something to preserve it.’

‘A doctor?’

‘No, she was a librarian.’

He watched the moment of laughter on Elizabeth’s face as she found amusement in the connection between librarian and historian and then to the muse of history, Clio.

‘Sorry,’ he added as her laugh turned into a wince, she was still drastically uncomfortable and from what he’d seen it was understandable.

‘She didn’t have the knowledge to complete the project though?’

‘No, she had help from a doctor named Aesus who created some nanite type things that would roam the city and select the right candidates, those being the people with the highest functioning gene and those with the lowest.’

‘How much did you find out from Radek?’

‘Pretty much everything, I wanted to freak out every time I saw you for a while after that.’

‘Why? And why didn’t you tell me after you spoke to Radek?’ 

‘You were seven months pregnant Elizabeth, the last thing you needed was a panic attack.’

‘Panic attack?’

‘Rodney was wrong, they didn’t give up on the experiment because it was destroying the original carriers, they worked that out, stopped the degrading from happening.’

He paused, considering that this would still be a bad thing to tell Elizabeth. Back when he’d spoken to Radek, he’d been disturbed by the information and made Radek swear never to tell anyone, especially Elizabeth.

‘They had problems with the children.’

He watched her, expecting the fear that currently flashed across her face and her eyes slid back to their daughter.

‘What…’ she swallowed, ‘what kind of problems?’

‘To start with, the pregnancies didn’t last, most would miscarry in the first trimester, they learned that the gene was too strong too early and adjusted it. A year before the project was cancelled; they managed to get several successful births, but…’

He closed his eyes, he couldn’t look at her as he said the next part, she would panic, he had; he’d sat at the baby’s side every available minute. He’d forced Carson to keep a close eye on her, on her heart rate and breathing, everything.

‘John?’

He hated the shaky tone in her voice, it frightened him more than the information he’d kept quiet for two months.

‘None of the babies lived more than 48 hours.’

He could hear her breathing, short gasps for air that came with the panic she would now be feeling. The bed shifted and John opened his eyes, Elizabeth was on her feet, her back curved for a moment as she adjusted to the pain she was in before she straightened up. 

John moved himself, pulling his pillow down to lay beside the baby and walked quickly around the bed to wrap his arms around her. Naturally, and as he had expected, she tried to push him away.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said pulling her tighter, ‘Elizabeth,’ he tried again pulling them so he had his back to the bed, ‘look at her,’ he whispered, pulling her close and forcing her to rest her chin on his shoulder.

He could feel her breath on his neck and her body as she shifted against him still trying vainly to free herself.

‘She’s 54 hours old,’ he heard the sob that she tried to muffle. ‘I had Carson watching her every second of the day, I was there with her every chance I could get and if I wasn’t there, then someone else was in my place.’

‘That explains why I found Ronon with her one morning.’

‘The children in project died of cellular break down. None of them survived their second day, but Clio already has.’

‘Why?’ she sniffed, finally relaxing, if only a little bit. ‘Why is she different?’

‘Carson had a theory,’ John told her, turning them again and starting to lower her back to the bed, when she was seated, he crouched in front of her and took her hands. ‘The logs said “the lowest gene carrier”.’

‘All the Ancients had the gene,’ she said and he nodded, ‘I don’t have it all, I didn’t even take the therapy.’

‘The problem they had, was that the gene was too powerful in the kids,’ he smiled at her and she relaxed and gave a small smile back, ‘they were mixing two different gene types with a “booster” gene. Carson said to look at it like blood transfusion, mix the wrong two types together and you get a problem, mix three together and you get a blood cell war, so to speak.’

‘She’s only got two.’

‘And because she’s made it this far, they are definitely the right two; successful gene transfusion. She’s going to be strong, beautiful and smarter than Rodney,’ he stated firmly, then added, ‘hopefully without the ego to match,’ he paused to watch the glow of a smile cross her features. ’She’s going to have a stronger ancient gene than me and General O’Neill put together.’

Elizabeth turned back to look at the baby, she was still sleeping peacefully on the bed, John’s pillow close to one side in case she rolled over.

‘Clio,’ Elizabeth started and turned back to John, ‘Clio Sheppard; our own little Ancient treasure.’

He reached up and eased Elizabeth back down onto the bed before returning to his spot on the other side of their daughter.

‘She’s gonna make history.’


End file.
